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A typical Central American country scene. 



Inter american Geographical Readers 



A Central American 
Journey 

By Roger W. Babson 

Member of United States Commission to 
Central America in 1916; President of 

the Babson Statistical Organization; 

Author of "Business Barometers," 
" The Future" Series, etc. 




Illustrated with engravings 
maps and original drawings 



Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York 

World Book Company 
1920 






WORLD BOOK COMPANY 

THE HOUSE OF APPLIED KNOWLEDGE 

Established, 1905, by Caspar W. Hodgson 

yonkers-on-hudson, new york 
2126 Prairie Avenue, Chicago 

In the tremendous undertakings of the men 
whose work it is to establish and maintain 
our trade intercourse with other countries, 
South and Central America are assuming a 
greater significance than ever before. They 
are our neighbors, our natural customers, 
offering innumerable half-developed oppor- 
tunities for the exchange of commercial 
benefits. The Interamerican Geographical 
Readers, a series of which A Central Ameri- 
can Journey is the first volume to be pub- 
lished, is intended to give to young people 
a groundwork of general information about 
our neighbors of the two Americas and a 
friendly interest in them. In the form of 
a story, this book brings out the difficulties, 
the rewards, the unique conditions, and 
the picturesque features of our trade with 
Central America. The boy who reads this 
book will be able to see Central America as 
a young engineer, or capitaust, or repre- 
sentative of a business house sees it — as a 
land of opportunity and adventure 



MAR -9 i^° 



igr:bcaj-i 



Copyright, 1920, by World Book Company 

Copyright in Great Britain 

All rights reserved 

©CU565145 




PREFACE 

The attempt to combine in the form of a story for chil- 
dren an account of travel in the various countries of 
Central America and certain information on our commer- 
cial relations with these countries needs a word of ex- 
planation. The second of the two elements may seem, 
at first sight, to have no place in a book for young readers ; 
for the commerce of today is so many-sided and com- 
plex in its operations, it depends for its success on so 
many elements in agricultural, political, and financial 
conditions, that the subject might well seem too involved 
for the understanding even of Macaulay's often quoted 
schoolboy. 

It must be remembered, however, that salesmanship 
is the romance of today, and the linking of nation with 
nation, the world over, by friendly trade relations is the 
romance of the immediate future. Children hear their 
parents, older brothers, and uncles talk of some success- 
ful adventure in salesmanship as the youngsters of a 
past generation heard of the settlement of the Great West 
and the voyages of daring Yankee merchantmen to the 
Orient. It will be found that the subject of commerce 
has in itself great possibilities of interest for boys and 
girls. 

Successful commerce, as our exporters have found out, 
must take into account an element which is not down in 
tables of statistics, which has never been reduced to a 
formula — and that is human nature. Every business 
transaction is a human relation. Every time an ex- 
porter receives an order from a ranchero in Guatemala or 
a dealer in a coast city of San Salvador, every time he 
sends out a consignment of shoes, or barbed wire, or 



vi Preface 

striped drilling, or oil stoves, to some remote mountain 
locality of a little-known country, his success in the trans- 
action depends a great deal upon what he knows of the 
people to be supplied and of their ways and wishes. 

The foregoing facts were most forcibly brought home 
to the author in the course of a journey made in the 
spring of 1916 as a member of the Central American Com- 
mission appointed by W. G. McAdoo, Secretary of the 
Treasury, under the direction of the President. It was 
on this journey that the idea occurred to him of writ- 
ing a story to set forth the unique conditions and pic- 
turesque features of our trade with Central America. 
Considering that the commerce of the next fifty years 
will be in the hands of the boys and girls of today, it 
seemed well worth while to attempt a book that might 
help to give our young people a more sympathetic knowl- 
edge of one of the most important fields of our commercial 
relations. 

It is the belief of the author that no successful trade 
relations can be established with any country on merely 
selfish principles. Action and reaction take place when- 
ever one man has anything to do with another, whether 
they meet on a street corner or cable half around the 
globe. Unfairness begets unfairness, and fair dealing 
sooner or later insures fair dealing. The old saying 
that he who would have friends must show himself 
friendly is quite as true in the export business as it is in 
any other form of human association. 

It is not the purpose of this little book to preach any 
particular business creed or establish any special theory 
in commercial dealing. Nevertheless, truth is truth, 
and no book not based on the truth is of much value 
in either prose or poetry, history or fiction. Every 



Preface vii 

American must desire that the American standard of 
business dealing, the American sense of honor, should be 
such as every American will be proud of. It rests with 
the boys now growing up to maintain what is fine and 
high and to root out, as far as they can, what is unwise 
and selfish in our business world. 

In this story, the Carroll family, in their travels through 
Central America, see not only the beauty of mountain 
and valley, the quaint costumes of senorita, caballero or 
peon, but also the forces that help to make civilization. 
In the cities and towns of Central America they find 
people as interesting as any of their friends at home. 
They learn, as only the traveler can learn, the infinite 
variety and complexity of human life and the peculiar 
pleasure of adapting oneself to new conditions and mak- 
ing new friends where no friends were. 

Grateful acknowledgment is made of the author's 
indebtedness to the President of Guatemala and to various 
other persons in official position in Central America who 
put at his disposal every opportunity for observation 
and for the gathering of information ; also to Mr. John 
Barrett, Director-General of the Pan American Union, 
for valuable suggestions given. For assistance in adapt- 
ing the material to the interests and the comprehension 
of boys and girls, thanks are due to Miss Louise Lamprey. 
The photographs which are used to illustrate the book 
have been gathered from many sources ; the author wishes 
to acknowledge especially the kindness of the Pan Ameri- 
can Union and the Washington Office of the Panama Canal 
in permitting the use of prints from their collection. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER ~ PAGE 

1. A Southward Flight . . . . . . . 1 

2. Castles in New Spain . . . . j . .10 

3. Adventures of Today . • . . . . . .20 

4. The Gateway of the World 31 

5. The Great Waterway . . . .. . ' . .43 

6. On the Trail of Columrus 57 

7. A Plantation in Costa Rica 68 

8. Ups and Downs in Central America ... 84 

9. Mules and Mountain Trails 97 

10. Along the, Tropical Coast . . . . .110 

11. The Ancient Land of Nicaragua . . . .121 

12. Four Hundred Years of Progress . '..._. . 132 

13. The Wonders of a Wilderness 143 

14. The Treasure of San Juancito .... 155 

15. The Small Republic of Salvador .... 168 

16. Keeping Shop in Salvador 181 

17. From Coast to Capital in Guatemala. . . . 191 

18. Last Days in Guatemala 203 

Index - 217 



"The children came pelting in from school." 

CHAPTER ONE 
A Southward Flight 

"What should you say, Isabel," asked Mr. Carroll 
from the doorway of the living-room, "to our going to 
Guatemala to live ? " 

He had not yet taken off his overcoat, and his wife 
had been on the point of asking him why he had come 
home so early. At his amazing question she gave a 
start that sent spools rolling over the table. "Why, 
Robert," she said breathlessly, "what do you mean? 
How could we leave the children?" 

"That's it," he said slowly, watching her face, "do 
you think it would be wise to take the children there? 
You l$now something of it yourself from the month we 
spent there five years ago, and what I've told you. Rut 
should you like living there? The Company plans to 
open a Central American office, and has offered me the 
position of manager. The chief was frank about it. 
He said that they didn't want to call in a man from out- 
side, and that having been there several times I knew 

l 



A Central American Journey- 



more of the region than any one else in the office. But 
he said that if I went, I should have to stay for some 
years. I told him I'd talk with you and give him an 
answer as soon as possible." 

Mrs. Carroll was thinking fast. She looked about the 
pleasant room, so quiet and homelike in the early winter 
twilight, and felt rather as a plant might if it knew that 
it was going to be pulled up by the roots. Still, she was 
gardener enough to remember that transplanting is 
often good for plants — and sometimes for people. 

"Robert," she said as Mr. Carroll came back and sat 
down in the big leather chair opposite her own, "I should 
say you ought to take the offer at once if it were not for 
Betty and Billy. I can see how much it would mean 
in every way. You have always said that the one big 
chance for American business just now is in these Cen- 
tral American republics. But if we have to go there 
now, the children may grow up in another country. They 
won't have the training and the association that their 
friends will have, when they come back here. It's a 
big question." 

Mr. Carroll said nothing. He knew that it was a 
big question, and he did not want to settle it hastily. 
He was used to his wife's habit of bringing up every 
objection to a plan before deciding, and he expected her 
to do it now. 

" If they were older," Mrs. Carroll went on, thought- 
fully, "it wouldn't matter so much, because they would 
be away at school for most of the year, and if they were 
little things we should only have to consider their health. 
I suppose there are schools in Guatemala?" 

"Oh, yes, — and governesses, and tutors. And if 
Billy decides to be an engineer, he will have the chance 



A Southward Flight 3 

to see American engineers working on some of the most 
interesting problems in the world." 

"Lucia has had in many ways as good an education 
as they have," added his wife. "And she knows two 
languages." 

Lucia Bastido was a little Central American, daughter 
of a professor in the University of Guatemala, whose 
mother had been a schoolmate of Mrs. Carroll's. After 
her mother's death she had been sent to the United States 
for three years' schooling, and had become almost an 
adopted daughter in the Carroll family. "The children 
would learn Spanish in Guatemala," said Mrs. Carroll, 
as the front door closed with a bang, "anyway." 

"What do you mean, mother? What are you home 
so early for, Dad ? What's it all about ? " The children, 
rosy from the sharp November wind, came pelting in 
from school. Lucia, following more quietly, did not 
join in the clamor, but her big dark eyes were full of 
eager questioning. 

"Too long a story to tell before dinner, children," 
their father answered, smiling. "You've only a few 
minutes to spare," he added, looking at his watch and 
then at Billy's grimy fingers and Elizabeth's bright, 
ruffled hair. Still wondering, the children took the hint, 
but their voices could be heard in lively discussion, for 
they felt that some great plan was in the air. 

"They'll be wild to go," said Mrs. Carroll. " They are 
always begging me to get out my Indian embroideries and 
show people those photographs we took. After all, I 
taught twenty-five . or thirty children in a class before 
we were married, and I suppose I could teach them now." 

"And when they're twenty and twenty-two instead 
of twelve and fourteen," her husband observed, "who's 



A Central American Journey 



going to know the difference? I studied my Latin and 
geometry in the sugar house, watching the sap boiling 
in maple-sugar time, and the other fellows in my class 
got theirs, some of them in a preparatory school and 
some in other ways, but it was the same Latin and geom- 
etry after all. Betty will learn to play the piano and 
guitar, and ride well, and dance, in Guatemala just as 
she might at home. This country's too big to demand 
that all its children shall be run through one mold." 

The children came in, very much on their good behavior, 
and Guatemala was not mentioned until the soup had been 
served. Then their father took pity on them and explained. 

"This suspense is heart-breaking, isn't it? I'll tell 
you now that we may possibly go to Guatemala to live. 
You mustn't say a word about it till it's decided, though. 
Think how you'd feel if the news got all over town and 
then we didn't go !" 

The children looked rather solemn. Billy's eyes were 
big and dark with excitement. Elizabeth squeezed 
Lucia's hand under the table. At last Billy inquired : 

"Where should we live, father? On a ranch?" 

"No ; at least not for a year or two. We may have a 
ranch some day, but my office would be in Guatemala 
City, probably. There are many families who are Eng- 
lish or American or who speak English. But if we go 
there we must try to know Guatemala and its people 
just as we expect any one who comes from another country 
to live here, to know and understand our people. We 
must make it our home." 

This was a new idea to the Carroll children. While 
they were thinking it over, their father turned to Lucia. 

" Your father plans to come North for you in December, 
Lucia. Perhaps we may all go together. We should 



A Southward Flight 



have to leave during the Christmas holidays to reach 
Central America in the dry season. I haven't had a 
vacation in two years, and I should have to travel through 
the Central American countries and look over the field 
before settling down. My idea would be to take you 
all with me, so that you could see something of the country 
at the beginning. We should land at Colon — " 

"And see the Panama Canal!" exclaimed Billy. For 
the last two years he had studied every account and 
map and picture of the big canal that he could find in 
magazines, books, and newspaper supplements. When 
he was only a little fellow he had made mud dams in 
the brook on his grandfather's farm, and played with 
water wheels and dug new channels for the stream. 
Billy intended some day to be a civil engineer. 

"They have parrots," said Elizabeth, "and bananas 
and oranges." 

"Orchids," said Mrs. Carroll. 

"And snakes," said Billy. 

"Snakes don't five in cities," said Elizabeth, "do 
they, father?" 

"It will be hot there," said their mother, warningly. 

"It isn't hot in Queza tenango," Lucia remarked in 
her soft little voice. "It's the coast cities that are so 
very hot." 

"What made them build their cities in disagreeable 
places?" asked Elizabeth. 

5 " That's about as intelligent a question as people usually 
ask about a foreign country," her father answered. " Not 
all the cities are hot and uncomfortable. Three fourths 
of Central America is cool and pleasant. The lowland 
country along the coast is hot and unhealthy, but inland 
it is mountainous country with a temperate climate." 



6 



A Central American Journey 




A Southward Flight 



"Then why don't they live there ? " persisted Elizabeth. 

"I need an atlas to explain that," said her father, 
"unless you have a map in your head, which is the great 
reason for knowing geography, Betts, my dear. Get 
that map of Central America that has the heights of the 
mountains marked, and we'll have a lesson here and 
now." 

Mr. Carroll swept most of the dishes still remaining 
on the table to one side, to make room for the great 
map. Four heads bent above it as his long pencil pointed 
out one place after another. 

"Before the canal was built, all the ships had to go 
around the Horn, but here and there, along the coast, 
they would stop for water and supplies. In the old days 
of sailing ships most of the Central American fruits 
could never have been taken to our markets, because 
they would have spoiled. It is always summer in those 
tropical waters, remember. Ships in the business of 
trading between New York and San Francisco came near 
Central America all along the west coast, and in that 
way the west coast came to be settled first. 

"Cities aren't built where they are because people 
found a place that was pleasant to live and said, 'Let's 
have a city.' They grow up in places where people have 
to live on account of business. The ships must have a 
good harbor, and people who come to the coast with 
things to sell to the sea captains must have storehouses 
to put them in, and there must be boarding houses or 
hotels for the sailors and merchants and travelers who 
come into the town. If there is a rich country inland 
where a great many things are produced, and many 
roads come from it to the seaport, and the harbor is 
so large that many ships can anchor there, the port 



8 , A Central American Journey 

may come to be a big city like London, Hamburg, Mar- 
seilles, New Orleans, or New York. 

"But this wasn't the case in Central America. You 
see this long range of mountains all down the middle of 
it like a backbone. Look at the heights of those moun- 
tains marked on the map. No matter what grew there 
— coffee, or mahogany, or grass for cattle — whatever 
came down to the coast had to come over mountain 
trails on the backs of men or mules. That's an expensive 
way of carrying freight, you see. Bananas, one of the 
chief crops of Central America, need low, hot, moist 
land like this near the coast. But until very lately it 
cost so much to get goods to market from the inland 
country that traders let Central America alone and gave 
their attention to countries where the profits were bigger. 
In New Orleans, for instance, you find a city to which 
all the produce of the Mississippi Valley could come by 
boat, and did, for half a century." 

"Well, how is it any better in Central America now 
than it ever was ? " asked Billy. " Did the Panama Canal 
make a difference ? " 

"Yes ; and there are other things that have changed," 
answered his father. "That's where electricity and 
engineering come in. There is water power which can 
be made to run factories, either directly or by using it 
for electrical plants. Engineers can bridge canons and 
build new roads and invent ways to make mining profit- 
able. Sanitary engineers know how to make life safe 
in an unhealthy place. There's an immense amount of 
wealth in Central America ; all we have to do is to figure 
out a way to get it to the markets. The people of these 
republics know it, perhaps even better than we'do. They 
need us and we need them." 



A Southward Flight 9 

"What steamers go there, Dad?" asked Billy, who 
still remembered his visit to the wharves where ocean 
liners lay awaiting their passengers. 

"The fruit companies have their own steamers, and 
we'll probably take one of those if we go," his father 
replied. "This is the route," he added, tracing it with 
his pencil. 

"If we go!" repeated Elizabeth. "Seems to me we 
are going. Aren't we, mother?" 

"I think we are," laughed Mrs. Carroll. 




''New York harbor was growing small in the distance." 



CHAPTER TWO 

Castles in New Spain 

When a robin hatched in spring finds all his family 
ready to go South for the winter, he must be surprised 
to see how easily they leave their pleasant summer home. 
As the Carroll children saw their home packed away in 
boxes and their mother busy with lists of things to be 
bought and done, they felt rather like young birds getting 
out of the nest for the first time. They had to answer 
all sorts of questions from their friends at school, and 
almost every day some plan for the coming winter had 
to be met with the reminder : 

"But we aren't going to be here then, you know." 

Then one evening their father came home with the 
steamer tickets, and they began to feel that they were 
really going. 

"Our rooms are the best in the boat," said Mr. Carroll 
with satisfaction. "They're on the windward side — 
the ocean side." 

10 



Castles in New Spain 11 

"What difference does that make?" asked Billy, the 
practical. 

"The trade winds blow from the ocean and make that 
side of the boat cooler," explained his father. 

"B-r-r! Cool, in this weather!" shivered Elizabeth. 

"Three days after we leave port," remarked her mother, 
tucking the fifth white dress into Elizabeth's little new 
steamer trunk, "you'll be glad of these white linen suits 
even if it is December." 

The furniture and whatever else was not needed for 
traveling would go straight to Guatemala City. The 
Carrolls took with them only steamer trunks and hand 
bags, and a hold-all containing rugs. Not only the 
trunks but most of the clothes that went into them were 
new, and Elizabeth said that they had "skipped a winter 
and got their clothes ready for next summer." White 
linen suits, soft broad-brimmed hats, light waterproof 
coats, light underwear, and a few light woolen garments 
had to be provided, and Mr. Carroll warned his wife 
that laundry work was often unsatisfactory and that he 
was going to lay in a supply of soft collars and neglige 
shirts. Into his trunk went his well-worn riding-suit 
and leather leggings; and mosquito nets, ready made 
for hanging over beds, were among the curious things 
provided for emergencies. The two cameras were pro- 
vided with films carefully packed for the tropics. 

In the midst of their preparations came Christmas, 
and all the presents that they gave each other as well as 
most of those from relatives and friends were chosen 
for use on the journey. Mrs. Carroll made out a list 
of things which would be useful, and it was passed around 
among the uncles, aunts, and cousins, who were very 
indefinite in their ideas of tropical life and only too glad 



12 A Central American Journey 

of further information. Thus the Christmas gifts received 
that year included traveling bags, toilet sets, and suit- 
cases, all as light in weight as possible, silk sweaters, 
maps, books on Central America, rugs, umbrellas, and 
a fine camera for each of the three children. 

"At this rate," chuckled Mr. Carroll as he tucked some 
new ties into his scientifically packed steamer trunk, 
"we shall not find ourselves in the position of the man 
who went to sell snow plows in Brazil." 

Elizabeth's eyes grew round with astonishment. 
" Father ! Nobody ever did ? " 

"I have heard so, my dear. He probably didn't 
come out as well as Lord Timothy Dexter. He was a 
queer old fellow who lived in Newburyport in the great 
days of sailing ships, more than a hundred years ago, 
and he sent a cargo of warming-pans to the West Indies. 
The sugar planters took off the lids and used the long- 
handled pans to ladle out their sirup." 

"I can tell you truthfully," said Senor Bastido, who 
had come to spend Christmas with his little daughter 
and her friends, "that a large consignment of fur-lined 
coats was once shipped to Honduras. Honduras is only 
fourteen degrees from the equator." 

"I know of a house in New York," added Mr. Carroll, 
" whose export department not only sent handsome cata- 
logs printed in English to correspondents who knew 
only Spanish, but inclosed perfectly good United States 
stamps for replies. A stamp, of course, is no good out- 
side the country that issues it, except to carry a letter 
to some foreign country. You couldn't post a letter here 
with an English or French stamp on it, and have it reach 
its destination. It would be returned to you, possibly, 
or it might be treated like a letter with no stamp at all." 



Castles in New Spain 



13 



"Yes," said Senor Bas- 
tido, "when one builds a 
castle in Spain one should 
not be disappointed when 
it vanishes into the clouds. 
I am afraid many of the 
dreams of a great trade 
with Central and South 
America are nothing but 
castles in Spain with no 
foundation to carry them." 

"Father," said Eliza- 
beth, who was getting a 
little out of her depth in 
this conversation, "what 
do you mean by a castle 
in Spain?" 

"Just what you heard 
just now — a dream that 
has no foundation. I have 
heard that the saying came 
from the fact that there 
are no castles in Spain, so 

that a man who bragged about his estates there was 
drawing on his imagination. But it is true that many of 
the companies which have been formed to trade with our 
southern neighbors are simply got up for the purpose of 
getting something for nothing by cheating some one else. 

"We shall go to Central America to give as well as to 
receive, I hope. If I didn't believe that I have something 
to give to Guatemala I should stay where I am. Every 
one has something to give to his neighbors. We shall 
adopt the ways of Central America when we find that 




A cook in a Central American 
city returning from market. 



14 A Central American Journey 

they are better than ours, considering the place and the 
climate, and they may like some of our ways better 
than they do their own. When a man starts out to get 
as much and give as little as he can, he is likely to lose 
what he has. Fate comes back at him just as a rubber 
ball flies back when you bounce it against the wall. 
Every action, good or bad, has its reaction. We want 
to be pioneers, ready to build on a good foundation." 

The children rather liked to hear their father talk 
when he was thinking aloud. They did not always under- 
stand all he said, but they felt that he was speaking of 
big things, and wanted them to see how he regarded them. 

When at last all the preparations had been made, and 
each of the children had been sure some treasured posses- 
sion was left behind, and had found it safe after hasty 
search, the Carrolls found themselves on board the 
steamer. New York harbor with its towering down-town 
buildings was growing small in the distance. The blue 
water sparkled under a brilliant winter sun. The keen 
wind made them button up coats and sweaters. 

Three days later all the steamer chairs were occupied 
by passengers in white linen, exchanging stories of the 
tropics. 

There was a grim-looking old Scotch doctor on board, 
who turned out to be especially friendly to children. 
They never tired of hearing his quaint rhymes and stories 
of the Scottish mountains and lakes. 

"I wish things like that happened in America," said 
Elizabeth, one day. "I know about Pizarro, of course, 
and the Incas, and Sir Francis Drake, but nothing very 
exciting seems to have happened since the explorers 
came." 

"Ay, do ye say that?" asked the old doctor, with a 



Castles in New Spain 15 

twinkle in his eye. "Weel now, let me tell ye there's 
a tale about this vera Isthmus of Panama — they called 
it 'Darien' two hundred years ago. It was a real Castle 
in New Spain. Did ye never hear of William Paterson 
and the Darien Company?" 

Nobody had. Mr. Carroll sat down on the foot of his 
wife's chair close by and listened as eagerly as the children. 

"Ye may have heard of the persecuting of the Cove- 
nanters," Dr. Macgregor began, "and the wars between 
England and Scotland for two-three hundred years? 
After all their experience o' that sort, the Scots were 
none too willing to be friendly ; and when William and 
Mary strove to unite them under one flag with England, 
they held off. But there were those even in Scotland 
wha thought it a good thing and favored the Union. 

"Now, William Paterson was frae Dumfries, where 
my ain family lived, and must ha' seen something o' the 
persecution o' the Covenanters. They say that when 
he was a lad of eighteen he was one of those who risked 
life and liberty to carry food to the refugee ministers hid 
in the glens. When the officers heard of it and came to 
arrest him, he fled and went to the West Indies. There 
were plenty of his own folk there — the Scotch are aye 
roving about the world — and he learned the ways 
o' the country and traded in one thing and another. 
Some say he lived awhile in New York. In time he 
became a rich merchant in London, and that was no so 
easy for a Scot in those days. He founded the Bank 
of England in 1692, and organized a company to give 
London a better water supply ; and they say he surveyed 
the part that's now called Bloomsbury and planned it 
out for houses with gardens and open parks around 
them. 



16 



A Central American Journey 



"He was just wonderful in his knowledge of accounts, 
William Paterson was. As the Bible says, 'Seest thou 
a man diligent in his business, he shall stand before 
kings.' The King had a good head for business, and he 
listened to all William Paterson had to tell o' the wonder- 
ful new country in the tropics. 

"It was William Paterson the Scot, I'd have ye mind, 
wha could see more than two hundred years ago the vision 
of yon Panama Canal. He said the Isthmus was 'the 
door of the seas and the gateway o' the world.' He 
made it plain to the King how goods might be carried 
over mountain trails from one ocean to the other where 
the neck of land was narrowest, and save the long voyage 
round the Horn. He told him furthermore that by 
the Providence of God this Isthmus was the last bit of 
land unclaimed in this part o' the world. He said that 
if a colony o' righteous, God-fearing traders were given 




House building and plastering in Central America. 



Castles in New Spain 17 

the right to found a settlement on that little strip o' land 
between the seas, there would be some day a second city 
of Tyre. 

"So long as they thought it only talk, the English 
merchants didna trouble their heads. But at last the 
King granted the charter to the Scots, and the subscrip- 
tions for shares began to come in like snowflakes on the 
moor. The Darien Company took in a million pounds, 
— that's five million dollars, — almost before they knew 
it. The subscriptions came in from England and Hol- 
land and France as well as Scotland, and there seemed no 
end to them. 

"Then the East India Company in London were in 
fear that the new Scotch company would be getting 
their trade away from them. They were like what 
ye call a trust nowadays. There was wealth enough in 
the New World for every one, but they couldna believe 
it, and they were in a state of great fear. And it's a 
coward, always, that is cruel. 

"But while the Londoners were talking to the King 
and Parliament, the Darien Company was fitting out 
ships, five of them, and twelve hundred men ready to go. 
Not a man of them but was sure of coming back wi' ship- 
loads of gold. Some grasping ones got control of the 
Company, and at last they let Paterson go just as a 
supercargo — a kind of clerk. They were mad for gold. 
He tried to advise them, but they paid no heed. He 
told them to take care they had stores for a nine weeks' 
voyage, but they never even did that. Then when they 
were out to sea they found there had been dishonesty 
there and they had food for only six weeks, some of 
it not fit to eat. 

"For all o' that, Paterson's heart was in the venture, 



18 A Central American Journey 

and instead o' staying safe at home he went, and his 
wife with him. Sick and sorry they were of the sea before 
they reached land. Even then, when Paterson told 
them the huts ought to be built on high ground, the 
captain wouldna listen. He wanted to save carrying 
water, and so they started building' in a marsh. Little 
huts they built, of precious wood that would ha' been 
a treasure to a cabinet maker, but it was only common 
timber there ; and they thatched the roof with reeds. 
Of course they got fever in that swamp, and being taught, 
as Paterson said, by experience, the schoolmaster of 
fools, they took to the high ground after about two months. 
But there were many that died of the fever, and Mrs. 
Paterson was among the first. 

"While all this went on, the jealous East India Com- 
pany had got the ear of the Government, and an order 
was sent out to all the English colonies in America not 
to trade with the Darien colonists, nor to sell or give 
them provisions or help them in any way. Of course 
the Spaniards would not be friendly in any case, and the 
order was just a sentence of death if they stayed. 

"When the Company was formed, it had been settled 
that there were to be no slaves. Other colonies had 
made slaves of the Indians, ye see. But here the Indians 
were friendly and gave a banquet to the white men. 
Yet there was no chance for them after the Government 
turned against them, and they didna even know of the 
order at first. At last, after eight months the remnant 
of them gave it up and sailed for home in the only ships 
they had left, the Caledonia and the Unicorn. William 
Paterson begged to be left there even if he had to stay 
alone, for he still believed that others would come ; but 
they would not let him. He was so ill with fever he had 



Castles in New Spain 19 

to be carried on board the ship. And if they'd stayed 
only two months longer, a second colony would have 
found them there. As it was, the newcomers found the 
place deserted and gave it up, too. Only thirty, out 
of two thousand four hundred, ever came home again. 
Paterson was one of them, and in spite of the failure of 
the Company his own people at Dumfries sent him to the 
first Scottish Parliament. He was born two hundred 
years too soon, was Paterson. 

"To this day that bay is called Port Escoces in memory 
of the Scots that tried to found a new city there. And 
that's how England, away back in 1698, lost her chance 
to own the Panama Canal." 



CHAPTER THREE 
Adventures of Today 

"Salesmanship," said Mr. Carroll, "is a big adven- 
ture." 

Dr. Macgregor nodded his shaggy old head. 

"The Glasgow man that sells water pipes to the Argen- 
tine is no sae romantic as a knight in armor," he com- 
mented, "but I'm thinkin' he's mair useful in that cli- 
mate." 

The men on the shady side of the deck chuckled over 
the notion. The three others were young. Frost was 
an electrical engineer ; O'Keefe was commercial attache 
for the United States Government, and a young salesman 
named Follansbee was traveling for a hardware house. 

"If some salesmen would get it through their heads 
that adventure does not mean going at it with a chip on 
the shoulder," said O'Keefe, "my job would be easier." 

"Might not have any job in that case," Frost suggested 
lazily. 

"Well," declared the salesman, "you have to sit up 
all night when you're dealing with some people unless 
you expect to get left. These are times when it takes 
some push to land the business." 

Mr. Carroll smiled. "Have you been down here 
before?" 

"No, but there's no use being too polite about it, 
people half the time don't know what they want. You 
have to tell 'em, and then you go on and make them 
buy it." 

This time both Frost and O'Keefe smiled. The 
doctor got up and stalked away. 

20 



Adventures of Today 21 

"There's a little verse of Kipling's I remember," 
remarked Frost, "something like this : 

"And the end of it all was a tombstone tall, and the name of 

the late deceased, 
With the epitaph drear, 'A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East ! ' 

You see, in a fight between one man and a whole country 
— and its history behind it — the odds are more or less 
on the side of the country." 

"Frost knows," observed O'Keefe. "He doesn't try to 
fight now. He simply goes and does things." 

"That's what I mean," Follansbee insisted. "Just 
go ahead. As the old man says, we ought to be selling 
all this country now." 

"You won't sell the country so soon as you think, 
maybe," said Frost, dryly. "But you'll have more 
chance of selling goods in the country, if that's what you 
want, when your home office is educated up to the situa- 
tion. You'll be in luck if your goods are packed so that 
they aren't broken to bits, or shipped to the wrong port. 
You'll have to compete with Europeans and Japanese 
who know the ground as they know the fingers on both 
hands, and you'll begin to wonder, after a while, if your 
shipping clerks know the right hand from the left." 

"It isn't so bad now as it used to be," put in Mr. 
Carroll. "Until a few years ago American business 
men didn't really care to secure Central American cus- 
tomers, but now some of them are going at the problem 
in the right way. I've asked a good many exporters 
about it, and some of them say that fifty per cent of our 
manufacturers are wasting their money, others sky that 
only ten per cent really need educating; but they all 
agree that there is plenty of room for improvement. 
One man told me he had been in the export business 



A Central American Journey 



fifteen years and that if he spent his fife at it he would 
still have much to learn. In each of the countries south 
of the Gulf of Mexico conditions differ, and they also 
change from time to time. I imagine that what Frost 
refers to is the blunders of clerks in a big office where a 
small mistake may make no end of trouble. When one 
of them writes pounds instead of kilos, and the ship- 
ment is going thousands of miles away, the cost of such 
a blunder is serious. The firm can discharge the clerk 
who made the mistake, but that doesn't help the salesman 
down here in the tropics." 

Frost nodded. "That was the kind of thing that hap- 
pened to me," he said. "It was my first job here, and 
it shows you what can happen when you're out at the 
latter end of nowhere selling something to a man who 
needs it badly. I'd been sent by the head of my concern 
to a coffee plantation on the side of a mountain to install 
an electrical contrivance for a planter who had traveled 
in our dear home country and ordered it at our factory. 
I landed at a little coast town and waited there some 
time in the company of the mosquitoes, and then I got 
uneasy. There was a time limit on the job. If we didn't 
finish the installation by a certain date, there would be 
a forfeit to pay. I telegraphed, and got word that the 
freight had been shipped to another port, which the head 
of the export department thought would be nearer. It 
was nearer, as the crow flies, but I wasn't a crow, and 
there was no railroad from there to the plantation. It 
would have to go two thirds of the way on mule-back in 
any case, though, and I joyously hastened to the port 
they mentioned and arranged for mule trains, drivers, 
and so on. The consignment hadn't come, but the 
steamer got in a day or two after I did. 



Adventures of Today 23 

" Upon my word, I don't know how they ever got that 
freight ashore. The important fact so far as this story 
is concerned is that parts of it weighed over two tons 
apiece. The planter had told them to have these cast 
in sections, as we always did cast them when they were 
going to such a place as this. When I beheld them, all 
four sections of each piece had been cast together in two- 
ton iron chunks. And it wasn't the kind of thing that 
you could chop in pieces. 

"At first I had a mind to ship them straight back to 
the factory and write a letter that would make their 
hair stand up. Then it seemed to me that it would be 
better to get the thing into place first. The senor from 
his place in the mountains had been sending telegrams, 
and it didn't seem exactly fair to him to delay the matter 
indefinitely. I sent my head man out for all the mules 
he could find, and somehow or other he gathered a train 
that I believe they are talking about down there to this 
day. There was a mule famine in the neighborhood until 
we got back. While he was on his mule hunt I built a 
kind of rough truck that would hold the castings, tied 
them on it, and off we moved. 

"You understand that this mule train of ours had to 
find its way over trails intended for one mule at a time. 
A mule can hold on to a mountain side as if he had claws 
on his feet, but the freight-truck hadn't any claws, and 
we had some narrow shaves. Then, one day, we came 
round the spur of a mountain and found a cliff rising 
straight up on the left, five hundred feet or more, and a 
sheer drop of at least a thousand feet on the right into 
a canon. The track between them, twisting round the 
mountain, was maybe three feet wide. 

"You will find, if you stay long in this country, that 



24 



A Central American Journey 




"'If anything had slipped, the whole outfit would have gone to 
kingdom-come.' " 



Adventures of Today £5 

your firm expects you to follow instructions whether 
it can be done or not. Fortunately, the mules and mule- 
teers are used to being told to do impossible things. I 
told my head man to go and get me some trees somewhere, 
and he got them — I don't know where. The gulf on 
our right was not very wide, and I was told that the 
country on the other side was not bad at all. We rigged 
a sort, of bridge over that canon, lashing the trunks of 
the trees together with ropes and rawhides, and started. 
Of course, if anything had slipped, the whole outfit would 
have gone to kingdom-come, but nothing did. When the 
machine was in its place I sat down and sent a letter to 
the office full of all the things I had been thinking up to 
tell them. No ; they didn't do that again. The next 
time they did something different." 

"Our firm doesn't deal in that kind of thing exactly," 
said Follansbee, in a rather more subdued tone. "We 
handle agricultural machinery, hardware, and so on. 
There ought to be a good market for that in any agri- 
cultural country." 

"There's a certain difference between agriculture in 
Central America and farming in Illinois or Mississippi," 
said O'Keefe. "I was in Guatemala in the corn-planting 
season last year. The Indians fertilize the fields by 
letting the sheep run in them to feed on the roots of the 
corn stalks. They use a crooked stick for a plow, and 
plant with a large hoe called an azadon. Sometimes they 
burn the land over and don't plow it at all. One planter 
told me that the year before he used modern machinery 
on a sloping hillside, stirring up the soil thoroughly. 
His Indian tenants stuck to their old ways. The first 
big rain washed all his corn down the hill. The Indians 
planted their corn in holes made by hand, it stayed where 



26 A Central American Journey 

it was, and they made the usual crop. It might be possible 
to terrace this hilly country and use modern machinery 
in that way, but you see all that takes money, and the 
Indians have none." 

"Even so," said Mr. Carroll, thoughtfully, "there is a 
chance that American factories could make the tools the 
people use better and cheaper than they can be made 
elsewhere. I know one firm which makes machetes, 
the cutlasses the people here use for all sorts of work 
where we might use axes or some other tool. Indian 
guides use big-, heavy ones to cut a path in the jungle, 
just as they did in the days of Cortes. There are short 
ones not more than two feet long, and some are made 
ornamental, with carved ivory or inlaid handles. Native 
troops used the machete in the Cuban war. All these 
machetes practically had to come from Europe until this 
firm saw its chance and began to make them." 

"Modern machinery could be used more than it is," 
added the engineer. "On the line between San Felipe 
and Quezaltenango they began a railroad all by hand, 
and there were some tremendous cuts and falls. Labor- 
ers used the azadon as pick or shovel by turns, and cut 
down trees and grubbed up roots with machetes. They 
lugged off rocks and dirt on hand barrows. The managers 
could get men at from eight to twelve cents a day, 
and didn't think it would pay to bring in labor-saving 
machinery. But if they had used machinery they could 
have done more work with the same men." 

"Possibly five times as much," said Mr. Carroll. "As 
things are, a great deal of water power is wasted. Ma- 
chinery could be used to improve the roads, and with 
better roads they could put in more machinery. A mule 
can carry three bags of cement, a man two bags, and a 



Adventures of Today 



27 




Day laborers in Central America using the azadbn (hoe) 
and the machete (large cutlass) . 

boy one bag. If they used that human labor for operating 
machines, it would count for so much more that the 
machinery would pay for itself." 

"But all these pretty possibilities," said Frost, lifting 
his long figure out of his steamer chair, "depend on getting 
your goods to the man who wants them ; don't forget 
that. Tell your home office, if you have any influence 
with them, to follow the customer's instructions word 
for word. He knows what kind of road it is to his mine, 
or plantation, or whatever he owns in this country, he 
knows what kind of labor he has to depend on, and he 
knows what the customs regulations and freight rates 
are. He's had plenty of time to learn them. I knew 
a case where the order read that the goods should be 
packed in boxes that held not more than 75 kilos, because 



28 A Central American Journey 

that was all that could be easily handled in getting them 
over the roads. The manufacturer hadn't any cases 
of that size just then, and used cases holding 175 kilos 
instead. The customer lived up in the mountains some- 
where, he had had the goods insured, and he found that 
if he was to get them at all they would have to be unpacked 
and repacked in cases of the proper size, and that would 
make his insurance absolutely no good. You see, he 
had insured them against theft and other accidents, and 
he meant them to come straight through in the original 
package. All this would mean a loss that would amount 
to more than he would make on the goods if he got them. 
You see, when a case of stuff may have to travel in all 
weathers, or lie on an open platform overnight, it's 
important to have it properly packed when it leaves the 
factory." 

"I can tell you something to beat that," said O'Keefe, 
rising also. "I knew an American down here who ordered 
about a hundred packages of a particular kind of station- 
ery. The home office packed it in a wooden box con- 
siderably too big ; labor was costly just then, and to have 
a box made just to fit the order would have cost more 
than the profit on the order would be. The extra space — 
about three fourths of the box — was filled up with 
waste boards. In the country to which it was sent, the 
duty is figured by the weight of the consignment, and 
if it is mixed goods the rate for the whole parcel is that 
on the most expensive goods in it. Thus you see the 
American had to pay duty on his paper and the scrap 
lumber on the same basis. The duty amounted to more 
than the cost of the paper. Maybe he didn't have some- 
thing to say in the next mail !" 

"And supposing he lived in Chicago, maybe some 



Adventures of Today 29 

thoughtless person in Maine or Los Angeles would do 
the same thing the next week," said Frost, with a yawn. 
"Pity these indignant people with experience can't col- 
lect their experiences into a book. But then, perhaps 
the exporters who need it most wouldn't read it — they 
don't all read the consular reports. You can see from 
what we've said that if goods can be packed in light 
crates strongly made with waterproof covers, it's an 
advantage in a mule country." 

"Another thing that you may have to explain to your 
home office," said Mr. Carroll, "is the absolute necessity 
of enough stamps on their letters. In most Central 
and South American countries the letter with insufficient 
postage is not delivered and the postage collected by 
the postman as it is in the United States ; it is advertised. 
You may not happen to see the advertisement, and if you 
do, you may have to go in person to the post office for 
your letter. Even then there is often a good deal of 
red tape to delay matters." 

"But don't get discouraged, Follansbee," O'Keefe 
added. "There's plenty of trade here, and you'll find 
that there is a reason even for some things that seem 
senseless. Very often it's climate, and the equator isn't 
ever going to move. Jove ! Look at those clouds ! " 

The words were hardly spoken when a gust of chilly 
wind swept over the sea, the sun disappeared behind a 
black, steamy cloud, there was a roar and a flash and 
sheets of rain sent everybody scampering for shelter. 
Safe inside, the children looked out at what Billy said 
was "the grand-daddy of all the thunderstorms that 
ever were." 

"I've seen the course of the Chagres Biver marked out 
in white mist clear as chalk, before a storm like this," 



30 A Central American Journey 

said Frost, as he stood looking over their heads at the 
deluge. "The sun draws the water up into these great 
banks of cloud, and when the air has all it can hold the 
whole collection comes down at once. This is a little 
late in the winter for it, though. I don't believe you'll 
see another." 

"My ! I'm glad our decks are made so it will run off," 
said Elizabeth, sagely. "We'd sink in about a minute 
if it could come in here." 

"I have seen water several inches deep on the earth 
in such a rain as this," said Mr. Carroll. "But it won't 
last long." 

It did not. While they were at dinner the sun came 
out, and seemed brighter than ever. The young engineer 
told them they might be glad they were not on land near 
a swamp, or they would know just how it felt to be 
boiled. 



CHAPTER FOUR 
The Gateway of the World 

The first sight of a 
place is seldom just like 
one's previous idea of 
it. The Carroll children 
had seen pictures of 
Panama and received 
post cards of it, and for 
the last week they had 
been hearing stories and 
asking questions about 
the Isthmus and its 
wonderful waterway. 
Yet the real place did 
not look at all as they 
expected. Lucia's idea 
of it was rather clearer, 

but she had never seen it before. When her father had 
taken her to the United States three years before, they had 
sailed from Puerto Barrios, a port much farther north. 

Everybody was leaning over the rail to get the first 
sight of land, and almost everybody had something to 
say about it. 

"I shouldn't think those people had maps in their 
heads," Elizabeth whispered, standing on tiptoe to reach 
her father's ear. Not far away three or four tourists 
were trying to decide which way the Panama Canal runs. 
One man insisted that it ran east and west. Another 
declared that as South America is not due south of North 
America, but southeast, the canal must cross the Isthmus 

31 




A visit to a coconut warehouse. 



32 A Central American Journey 

from northeast to southwest. A third said at last, "I'll 
bet it's neither ; it's north and south ! Anybody got a 
map?" 

Mr. Carroll had one. The three tourists looked rather 
foolish when they found that as Colon is farther west 
than Panama the canal runs from northwest to south- 
east. 

"Shaped like the letter S, isn't it?" observed one. 
"The country, I mean. Wonder how big it is. This 
says 32,380 square miles. As big as Belgium." 

The three children of the Carroll party looked at each 
other and grinned. They knew better than that. What 
is the use of learning the number of square miles in a 
country and the number of people who live there, if not 
to know how it compares with other countries ? 

"I suppose you know all about Panama," remarked 
Mr. Carroll quizzically, as he returned the map to his 
pocket and the tourists moved away. When he found his 
children behaving as if they knew more than others, 
he was likely to question them to see if they did. 

"We know some things about it, anyway," quoth his 
daughter, stoutly. "We played the geography game all 
yesterday afternoon. Let's play it now and show father. 
We aren't near enough to see anything yet." 

The game was one their mother had taught them to 
while away the long hours of a railway journey. They 
agreed on some country, and each in turn would mention 
some fact relating to it, beginning immediately after to 
count up to a given number. If the next player could 
think of no new fact before the counting was finished, 
that player was out of the game. At first they had 
counted to thirty, but it was more exciting to make it 
ten. 



The Gateway of the World 33 




"Panama is three times as big as Belgium," began 
Billy, "one, two, three — " 

"It is almost as big as Maine," put in Elizabeth. 

"It has 420,000 people," went on Lucia. 

"Highest mountain is 11,000 feet high," said Billy. 



34 A Central American Journey 

"The Chagres River is a hundred miles long," stated 
Elizabeth. 

"The rainy season is from the middle of April until 
the middle of December," was Lucia's next item. 

"Colon has 140 inches of rainfall a year," said Billy. 

"Panama has only about 60 inches of rainfall," added 
Elizabeth. 

"The republic of Panama is 425 miles by 70," — from 
Lucia. 

"There are about 13 inhabitants to the square mile," 
Billy put in. 

"The old name of the Isthmus was Darien," Elizabeth 
recalled this just as her brother counted "nine." 

"The chief cities are Colon and Panama," said Lucia. 

"Panama has the longest coast line of any country 
of its size on this hemisphere," observed Billy; "767 
miles on the Pacific side and 476 on the Atlantic — as 
far as from Maine to Florida." 

"It can't be!" Elizabeth exclaimed, forgetting the 
game. " Is it, father ? " 

Mr. Carroll laughed. "You're a little ahead of me 
this time," he said, and consulted his guidebook. "But 
— yes, you're right, Billy." 

"Um-m — Morgan and the pirates destroyed Old 
Panama," Elizabeth recited hurriedly. Billy raised a 
question this time. 

" Is that a geographical fact, father ? " 

"Allowable, I should say," Mr. Carroll answered. 

"Well, you ruled out Lucia when she said Rodrigo de 
Bastida discovered the coast of Panama, and she chal- 
lenged me when I said Balboa crossed the Isthmus in 
twenty-six days and discovered the Pacific Ocean. You 
said that was history and not geography." 



The Gateway of the World 35 

"History and geography are apt to be more or less 
mixed," remarked Billy's mother. 

"But when you play a game it's got to be played 
according to the rules, or it's no fun," insisted Billy, 
stubbornly. 

"Right, son, and what is more, when you make the 
rules as you go along, as you seem to be doing now, it's 
important that they should be right," agreed his father. 
"You were there yesterday when we were talking about 
salesmanship. Trade is a game, too — a great game, one 
of the biggest in the world. And the rules for that have 
to be made as we go along, in the same way, or the whole 
business gets into a snarl." 

"And then we have a war," said Billy, thoughtfully. 

"Sooner or later, in one way or another," said Mr. 
Carroll. "It may not be with bullets and shrapnel, 
but unfairness and deceit and treachery always make 
trouble." 

"Well, suppose we let in historical facts after this," 
Billy suggested. "It will be all the more interesting. 
Only we shall have to read up on history. Lucia knows 
it all now." 

"I was born here, you know," said Lucia, smiling. 
"Don't you remember how long it took me to learn the 
names of all the different States, and who settled them ? 
I didn't have any idea that so much had happened in 
your country in the last hundred years until I went to 
school with you." 

"I wish that some of the things hadn't happened," 
sighed Elizabeth. "I don't see what use there is in 
learning so many dates." 

"A date is a label, daughter," said Mr. Carroll. "Ask 
your mother if it isn't. I must see about the trunks." 



36 A Central American Journey 

"Father means, Betty," said Mrs. Carroll, "that 
knowing the dates in history helps us to arrange what 
we know in proper order and see how things connect 
themselves. Take the story Dr. Macgregor told you 
about William Paterson. When you know that it hap- 
pened in 1698, you can see what sort of world it was 
that William Paterson lived in. It was a world some- 
thing like the one that Robinson Crusoe knew in his 
boyhood. Daniel Defoe was thirty-seven years old when 
the Darien Colony was founded, and people in Europe 
had been thinking and talking about planting colonies 
in the New World, when he was a boy. If Defoe knew 
men who had been traders and colonists and had perhaps 
been shipwrecked on one of the little West India Islands, 
you can see how he got the idea for his wonderful descrip- 
tion of Crusoe's island. Did you know that it was in 
this very Caribbean Sea?" 

"No !" gasped Betty. "Where?" 

"I packed the book with the rest of your library. 
When you get a chance to read it again, perhaps you can 
make out." 

They were drawing near enough to land to be able 
to see what it was like, and now the leave-takings 
from steamer friends and the preparations for landing 
began. 

More than once the remark was heard, "I wonder if 
it can be any hotter on land than it has been on this boat 
for the last two days?" Toward the end of the voyage 
the steamer had been going with the trade wind, and 
without the strong breeze blowing over the deck the 
heat of the sun had been truly tropical. The first land 
in sight was Darien, hills which are seen on the left for 
some hours before there is any glimpse of Colon. Until 



The Gateway of the World 37 

the canal was built, Colon was merely an open roadstead, 
for it has no natural harbor. Even now ships anchor 
in this open roadstead, as a place is called which is 
not too deep for anchoring but is not sheltered by the 
shore. 

A little motor boat flying the United States flag now 
came out to meet the steamer. A doctor, an immigration 
officer, and two or three other men, all trim and neat in 
khaki uniforms, came aboard to examine all the passengers 
and crew. In this way it was made sure that no one 
should be detained on account of illness, or for having 
been in an infected port. 

While this was going on, Elizabeth caught at her 
father's arm as they stood by the rail. "Daddy! Is 
that a whale? And what are all those ships out there 
waiting for?" 

"That's not a whale, my child; it's one of our sub- 
marines. And that open channel you see at the right 
is the entrance to the Panama Canal. The ships are 
waiting their turn to go through." 

The children gazed in silence at the entrance to the 
great waterway, and at the waiting ships. This was their 
first sight of the Panama Canal ! 

"Why do they call this place Cristobal, father?" asked 
Elizabeth after a while. "I had thought that it was 
named Colon." 

"It is. When the United States Government took 
over the strip of territory about ten miles wide, called 
the Canal Zone, they had to build a town here, and they 
decided not to rebuild Colon, but to lay out a town of 
their own. Just over the line, on their own land, they 
cleared away all the old huts there and built as they 
liked. That town is Cristobal. There's no fence between 



38 A Central American Journey 

the two, not even any great distance. One side of a cer- 
tain street is in Colon ; the other is in Cristobal." 

On leaving the steamer the Carroll party went to the 
hotel, but there was no keeping the children indoors long. 

"What is the weather like here, Robert?" asked Mrs. 
Carroll, as she unlocked trunks and opened bags. 

"Not so hot as at home in July," answered her hus- 
band. "In December it is about 79 degrees., and in 
April, the hottest month, it is about 81. Panama is a 
little cooler and not so moist. In my old geography 
this place used to be called Aspinwall, after one of the 
founders of the Panama Railroad. When I first came 
here, in 1902, the railroad, ran along a narrow, dirty 
street with little huts at the side. Now the streets are 
paved, sanitary conditions have been improved by the 
Government, and good buildings have been constructed." 

"Did you hear that old lady from California tell how 




Office of Panama Canal, Washington, D.C- 

View of the Panama Canal, showing the famous Culebra Cut, now 
called the Gaillard Cut. 



The Gateway of the World 39 

she came here before the railroad was finished?" asked 
Mrs. Carroll. "At the end of the railroad she had to 
take a boat and then go on mule-back. She had two 
babies with her, and was determined to keep them under 
her eye, but they told her that would be impossible. 
She finally turned them over to the negro guide, who went 
by a short cut. She said she never expected to see 
them again, but they reappeared at the end of the journey 
as happy as kittens." 

"When was that?" asked Billy. 

"I don't know exactly," said Mrs. Carroll, "but the 
railroad was built after gold was discovered in California, 
and finished in 1855. This old lady's husband was one 
of the 'Forty-niners,' and she went out to join him after 
he had made the journey twice. She was only twenty- 
four, and the children were twins, a year old." 

The party soon went out to see Colon. The shipping 
in Limon Bay at the, entrance to the canal was a pic- 
turesque sight. A great breakwater lately built improves 
the harbor. Besides the steamers there were many 
canoes and small sailboats in which the San Bias Indians 
had come from the coast to the eastward, to sell coconuts, 
bananas, and other fruit, beadwork and basket-work. 

"Do you suppose these are like the Indians Columbus 
saw when he landed?" asked Elizabeth, dreamily. 

"They won't let a foreigner stay in their villages over- 
night, although they seem ready enough to trade with 
us," her father commented, as he filled one of the odd 
little baskets with different sorts of fruit. "Look, there's 
the statue of Columbus ! Both parts of the town are 
named for him." 

"He had enough different names," remarked Billy. 

"His real name was Cristoforo Colombo, for he was 



40 A Central American Journey 

an Italian from Genoa, you know," explained Mrs. 
Carroll. "When he went to Spain he called himself 
Cristobal Colombo, the Spanish form of the same name. 
Christopher is the English form. Columbus is the Latin 
form used in the old histories. All the old books of travel 
in the museums were written in Latin, which every 
learned man of those days knew. Latin was spoken 
in colleges and used for writing letters from one country 
to another. You see, in that way, if a scholar knew 
his own language and Latin he could talk with any other 
scholar, anywhere in the world. The accounts of the 
early voyages have the name in various forms, but the 
surname is almost always Columbus." 

"Your name is the Spanish for Elizabeth, Aunt Isabel," 
said Lucia, "and when I first came to your house I used 
to forget and call Betty Isabel too." 

"San Jose is Saint Joseph, and San Francisco is Saint 
Francis," added Billy. "Those old explorers were 
always naming places in that way." 

"Gracias a Dios means Thanks to God," said his 
mother, "and I remember how horrified some of my 
friends there were when tourists called it ' Gracious. ' Los 
Angeles was once Santa Maria de los Angeles. These 
beautiful old names are full of the history of the country, 
and it does seem a pity to pronounce them carelessly. 
The places were often named for the patron saint of 
the discoverer, or the saint on whose day they were dis- 
covered or founded, in the hope that the saint would 
watch over them and bless them. I haven't a doubt 
that many of the good men and women who lived there 
found this thought a great help." 

"It must have seemed strange at first," reflected Eliza- 
beth, trying to imagine living in this strange place, with 



The Gateway of the World 41 

no letters, no stores, and no food except what could be 
found at hand. "Why, I never knew that coconuts 
grew in Panama. I thought they grew on coral islands, 
around lagoons." 

"They do," answered her father. "But they like a 
sandy soil with air stirring, wherever it is warm enough 
for them. This is probably the best coconut country 
in the world, except the Philippines. The long coast 
line is in their favOr, and so is the climate. One can buy 
land here for from two to five dollars an acre, set the trees 
about twenty feet apart, and after seven years they will 
begin to bear nuts. They bear for several months in 
the year, and I have counted as many as a hundred big 
nuts on one palm. They used to be called monkey nuts, 
and if you look at the end you'll see why." 

The shaggy brown ball really did look like the queer 
little face of a monkey. 

"Can we drink coconut juice as the Swiss Family 
Robinson did?" asked Billy, thirsty with the thought 
of it. 

Mr. Carroll said something to a fruit seller who was 
standing by. He smiled, took them to his warehouse a 
little way off, and treated the children to a perfectly 
new drink. For this the coconuts are gathered green, 
put in cold storage a few days, and then opened. The 
juice is not yet milky, but colorless, slightly sweet, and 
delicate in flavor. 

"Here are some facts for your geography game," said 
Mr. Carroll. "Ten thousand acres of coconut palms 
were planted here in 1914, and more are planted each 
year. Whittier's poem on the palm will tell you some 
of the things coconuts are used for, but we have found 
some new uses for them since he wrote that. Raw nuts 



42 A Central American Journey 

are made into the desiccated coconut the grocer sells for 
cake and pudding. Copra is the meat of the dried kernel. 
Poonac, which is the refuse after the oil is taken out, 
is used as food for live stock, and the oil is used in soaps 
and medicines. Some people like the substitutes for 
butter and lard made from it and think them especially 
digestible. The fiber of the woody bark, which is called 
'coir,' is made into doormats, rope, mops, fancy baskets, 
and other things. The trees grow best near sea level. 
They need plenty of water, but will not grow in stand- 
ing water. Flowers and ripe nuts are seen on the trees 
at the same time." 

• "Don't you like our geography game, father?" asked 
Elizabeth. 

"Very much," her father assured her. "It helps you 
to remember what you learn, and what is more important, 
to have the knowledge at hand when you need it. I 
don't want you to go about the world pouring out informa- 
tion, but I should like to have you able to remember 
what you hear and repeat it accurately, and not to be 
dependent on a reference book." 




Office of Panama Canal, Washington, D.C. 

A steamship on its way to the Pacific Ocean, in the Miraflores Locks, 
Panama Canal. 



CHAPTER FIVE 



The Great Waterway 



"We can. go to the city of Panama by train, or through 
the canal," Mr. Carroll announced that night at dinner. 
"Which shall it be?" 

He was not surprised when every one voted for the 
canal. As Elizabeth said, they could take trains any- 
where, but they couldn't go through a ship canal except 
where there was one. 

Before beginning the journey, however, they went 
in a small launch to Gatun Lake, and saw the big dam, 
the spillway, and the locks. By the help of Mr. Carroll's 
explanations and the diagrams in the guidebook, even 
Elizabeth, although engineering was not in her line, came 
to understand the workings of the great waterway. 

43 



44 



A Central American Journey 




The Great Waterway 45 



A lock is a section of a canal or stream closed in by 
gates. When a boat reaches a lock, the gate is opened 
to let it in and closed behind it. Then the water is let 
in from the next gate, if the boat is going upstream, until 
the level on which it rests inside the closed space is the 
same as that of the stream or canal beyond. Coming 
downstream, the level is lowered in the lock by allowing 
the water to run out. In this way the raising of great 
ships from one level to another is done by the water itself. 

In the Panama Canal the gates are worked by elec- 
tricity, and the side walls are as high as a six-story apart- 
ment house. Mr. Carroll pointed out the twin locks — 
like a double-track railway — which made it possible for 
ships to be passing in both directions at the same time. 
Each lock is 1000 feet in length and 110 feet in width. 
The concrete and cement used — so an old gentleman on 
the boat told them — would cover a road around the 
earth twenty feet wide to a depth of six inches. If, 
owing to a flood or some such cause, the water should 
be unmanageable, it could be controlled by a second pair 
of gates. There are also great chains, lowered to the 
bottom so that the ship could pass over them, which 
could be lifted and used as brakes in case of need. On 
reaching the second and then the third lock the ship 
would pass through in the same way as in the first. Then 
ships could go under their own steam through the lake 
and what used to be known as the Culebra Cut, now 
called the Gaillard Cut. This is the highest part of the 
canal, where the ship is carried through the hills far 
above sea level. 

The ship on which the party embarked the next day 
took about twelve hours to reach the Pacific. After 
passing the locks, it went about nine miles under steam 



46 A Central American Journey 

through Gatun Lake to Pedro Miguel. Here it entered 
another lock, and was lowered about thirty feet to a 
small lake, Miraflores, where it entered another lock and 
then another, through which it was lowered fifty-five 
feet to the level of the Pacific Ocean, and passed through 
a channel with a width at bottom of five hundred feet, 
to the harbor and the open sea. Ships are towed through 
the locks by electric engines called "mules," but pass 
through the lakes under their own steam. 

"I don't wonder people thought William Paterson 
was crazy two hundred years ago to talk of a canal here," 
remarked Billy, as he looked at the massive walls. The 
dreams of the Scotch adventurer so far in advance of his 
time had impressed the boy. 

"Cortes thought of one a long time before that," said 
Lucia. "The Aztecs built great city walls and wonder- 
ful roads before the Spaniards came." 

"Canals were built with a great deal of skill even in 
ancient times," Mr. Carroll said thoughtfully. "If 
they had needed a ship canal, perhaps they would have 
found a way to build it. But their wooden ships were 
small. An old sea captain told me that it is impossible 
to build a wooden ship beyond a certain length. It 
wouldn't have cost $400,000,000 to build a canal for 
Cortes." 

"Did this cost as much as that?" asked Elizabeth. 

"One authority says $375,000,000," replied her father. 
"Perhaps that does not include the work they had to do 
to stop the slides." 

It was hot and tedious in places, going through the 
canal, and Mrs. Carroll suggested a game. 

"Let us try to tell the story of the canal," she pro- 
posed. "We have all been reading about it; now let's 



The Great Waterway 47 

see what we remember. Keep time for us, Robert, and 
let each one have half a minute. Any one who can't 
remember within that time what comes next, drops out 
of the game." 

They drew bits of paper for the first turn. It fell to 
Billy. 

"The Panama Railroad was granted the right to build 
a canal," began Billy, carefully, "and they finished the 
railroad, but didn't even make a beginning on the canal. 
A great many surveys were made between 1872 and 1897. 
In 1879 a Frenchman started to build a sea-level canal." 

"How short a half minute is ! " sighed his sister. " Well 
— a — there was a Frenchman named De Lesseps who 
had built the Suez Canal. He thought he could build a 
sea-level canal, so he began at the Pacific side. But he 
found it was too unhealthy for anybody to live there 
even long enough to work. Now, mother!" 

"The money gave out," went on Mrs. Carroll, "and 
in 1887 the sea-level plan was changed to a lock plan, 
but people seemed to have less and less faith in the 
scheme, and the company finally failed. The managers 
were arrested on the charge of fraud, and some of them 
were convicted. De Lesseps was among these, although 
he was eighty-six years old and probably innocent." 

"In 1894," continued Mr. Carroll, "a new company 
began work, bought the French rights and materials, 
and secured control of this Canal Zone. The United 
States paid $10,000,000 in gold and $250,000 a year to 
Panama. At that time Panama was a part of Colombia. 
Colombia's government would not agree to the treaty 
giving the United States the right to build the canal, 
and Panama revolted and formed a republic, with which 
the United States made its treaty." 



48 A Central American Journey 

Mr. Carroll had talked rather fast to get this into the 
half minute. Lucia went on : 

"No private individuals or traders can settle in the 
Canal Zone or own land," she said rather hesitatingly. 
"I think it is what you call a military reservation. The 
United States has done a great deal to make this zone 
healthy." 

"I think we have covered the history of the canal 
pretty well," laughed Mrs. Carroll, "for the time we 
had to do it." 

"Father," said Billy, "how do they arrange what the 
ships have to pay going through the canal? Do all 
the countries pay alike ? " 

"There was a great deal of argument about that," 
his father answered. "The treaty between the United 
States and Great Britain in 1901 provided for the use 
of the canal on equal terms by ships of all nations. In 
1912 the United States passed the Panama Canal Act 
giving special rights to certain kinds of shipping of our 
own country. England claimed that this was against 
the treaty of 1901, which is called the Hay-Pauncefote 
Treaty because it was the work of our Secretary of State, 
John Hay, and Sir Julian Pauncefote, the British Ambas- 
sador. President Wilson requested Congress to repeal 
that part of the Panama Canal Act which made a dif- 
ference between American and other shipping, and this 
was finally done. 

"Each vessel pays according to the space allowed for 
its cargo and passengers, $1.20 per net canal ton, plus 
$1.20 per hundred cubic feet of deck load, which is usually 
a little more than the number of tons of cargo. The 
surveyor of any port in the United States can measure 
a vessel and make out its certificate. If a ship comes 



The Great Waterway 49 

with its certificate all prepared, it can be passed and be 
ready to go through the canal in an hour or two. If the 
captain has all his papers ready, the force here at the 
canal can measure vessels in from 24 to 36 hours. A 
set of the rules for measurement is furnished to every 
foreign country which has officials who can do this work. 
You see the payment is made according to the space the 
cargo and passengers occupy rather than by weight. A 
steamer rated at 5378 canal tons pays a toll of $6453.60." 

"Seems like a lot of money," commented Billy. 

"It would cost more to unload and load again and lose 
the time needed to do it, or to go round the Horn. There 
is a charge for towing — ten cents a Panama Canal ton. 
There is a different rate for vessels with no cargo or 
passengers. A government pilot is always on board while 
the ship is passing through the canal, to advise the cap- 
tain and take charge through the locks ; but except 
when passing through the locks the captain is responsible. 
If no freight or passengers are discharged at either end, 
there is no charge for the pilot." 

By this time the steamer was out of its narrow quarters 
and the children were ready to amuse themselves looking 
over the waters of the lake. But that afternoon they 
were ready for another game. 

"Let's play menagerie," proposed Elizabeth. 

"What's that?" asked her father, with an amused 
glance over the top of his magazine. 

"You begin by naming some kind of animal or bird, 
and count ten, and whoever can think of another one 
of the same kind can name that and start counting, and 
so on till somebody counts up to ten without being inter- 
rupted. Then that person counts one point and starts 
with some other bird or animal, and the one who gets 



50 



A Central American Journey 




The Great Waterway 51 

three points first wins. I'll begin this time. The ani- 
mals of Panama: Monkey, one, two, three — " 

"Tapir," said her father, and reached the middle of 
his count before Billy thought of "deer." Lucia was 
all ready with "wildcat." Wild hog, rats, mice, and 
various other animals were mentioned, but Lucia won 
that point. 

"The fish of Panama:" she began. "Corvina, — 
one, two — " 

"Tarpon," said Mr. Carroll. "Mackerel," ventured 
Billy. "Red snapper," said his father, who had the 
advantage of having fished these waters. He counted 
ten before any one thought of another fish, and the pelicans 
fishing along the shores of the canal furnished a suggestion. 

"The birds of Panama: Pelican, one, two — " 

Among the birds the quetzal, humming-bird, heron, 
and many others were mentioned, and the contest was 
quite spirited. Billy, who finally won, started a fist of 
reptiles, and Mr. Carroll declared that he was prepared 
to win the game on insects. But by that time dinner 
was announced. 

Nearing Panama, Billy recalled the fact that Vasco 
Nunez de Balboa was looking at the Gulf of Panama when 
he got his first sight of the Pacific. 

"What ever became of Balboa?" he asked. "I don't 
remember." 

"Did he cross the Isthmus here?" asked Elizabeth. 

"Now, Betty," said Mrs. Carroll, "it said in your 
history that he climbed a mountain and saw the ocean 
from its summit. How could that be if he followed this 
route ? 

"No; he started from the first Spanish settlement 
on the Isthmus, Santa Maria la Antigua, in Darien, not 



52 A Central American Journey 

very far from the place Dr. Macgregor showed you where 
Paterson's colony was. While he was crossing the 
mountains, the Indians told him that from the top of 
the next peak he could see the South Sea of which he 
had heard from them. He went alone because he was 
not at all sure that it was the sea ; it might be an inland 
lake or a swamp. If so, he did not wish any of his men 
to see his disappointment. When he s*aw that it was 
really the ocean, he knelt and prayed, and then beckoned 
to his -men and they rushed up to join him. He sent 
out three parties of twelve men each when they neared 
the shore, under Alonso Martin, Francisco Pizarro, 
and Juan de Escaray. After two days' search Martin 
and his companions came out on the shore and saw two 
Indian canoes drawn up on the beach. When the tide 
came in and floated them, Martin jumped into one and 
called on the rest to witness that he was the first Spaniard 
to sail on those waters. Then, as you remember, Balboa 
came and took possession in the name of the King and 
Queen of Spain. It was the feast day of St. Michael 
the Archangel, and he therefore named the gulf San 
Miguel. You will find it over here to the southeast of 
us. All the Spaniards took up some of the water in 
their hands and tasted it, to make sure it was salt. They 
met some Indians and made the acquaintance of their 
chief Tumaco, who brought them tribute of 614 pesos 
of gold and a basinful of pearls, 240 of them very large. 
The chief could not understand why they were so dver- 
joyed to see the pearls. If the pearls had been oysters 
he would have understood it, he said, but no one could 
eat pearls. He sent out his pearl fishers to get more for 
the white men, and in four days they gathered ninety-six 
ounces ! 



The Great Waterway 53 

" When Balboa wanted to go out on the ocean, Tumaco 
took him out in his biggest and finest canoe, with oars 
inlaid with pearl of an inferior kind. Tumaco also told 
the Spaniards that a great nation existed far to the south, 
very wealthy, sailing in great ships and using beasts of 
burden ; and he molded in clay a rough image of a llama, 
which the Spaniards thought might be a new kind of 
camel. I suppose this was the first that Pizarro ever 
heard of Peru, for he was one of those who listened with 
Balboa. 

"Balboa had made this journey in the rainy season, 
without losing a man, and made friends with every cacique 
chief along the road. If he had only got his letters about 
the discovery off to the King a little sooner, he might have 
been the conqueror of Peru, instead of Pizarro, and the 
history of South America would have been quite different. 

"But the King, not knowing of the great discovery 
Balboa had made, sent Pedro Arias de Avila as the new 
governor of the colony, with general orders to call Balboa 
to account. He is generally called Pedrarias in Spanish 
histories and D avila in English books. He was provided 
with a fleet of seventeen or eighteen ships and 1500 men 
and told to make every effort to find the South Sea. 
You can imagine the disgust of the King when a few 
days after this fleet sailed, Balboa's messenger arrived 
with pearls and gold and the news that Balboa with his 
little company had found the Sea already. 

"Balboa was generous enough to welcome Pedrarias 
and tell him all he could of the country, and the wicked 
old rascal took advantage of all this to abuse the Indians, 
and finally lured Balboa to Acla and had him arrested. 
Pizarro, of all people in the world, was sent out to arrest 
him, and Balboa exclaimed: 'What is this? You are 



54 A Central American Journey 




'They strolled next morning about the quaint old town." 



The Great Waterway 55 

not wont to come out in this fashion to receive me ! ' 
Pedrarias manufactured a charge of treason and had 
Balboa condemned and beheaded. And that was how 
it came about that Balboa did not discover the land of 
the Incas. He was just on the point of sailing when 
Pedrarias had him murdered. But after all, Pedrarias 
f got very little good of his brutality. The Indians rose 
against him, his followers died of sickness, and the settle- 
ment in Darien had to be abandoned. So you see there 
were all sorts among the conquistadores." 

The end of the journey came a few minutes after the 
end of the story, and they found themselves looking 
out upon the very waters where Balboa was launching 
his little wooden ships when he was recalled by the treach- 
erous Pedrarias. In the Gulf of Panama are the Pearl 
Islands from which Tumaco's divers brought the pearls 
that were sent to Spain in that historic year, 1513. 

"Mother," said Elizabeth, as they strolled next morn- 
ing about the quaint old town, "Mr. O'Keefe said there 
was a church here built partly of mother of pearl. Do 
you think we could find it ? " 

"You are looking at it now," said her mother. "The 
two towers of the cathedral are crusted with mother of 
pearl from the Pearl Islands." 

"I wonder how big those pearls were that the chief 
gave Balboa?" queried Billy. 

"I don't know," said Mrs. Carroll, "but Columbus 
brought Queen Isabella a beautiful pearl weighing 300 
grains. You can imagine that it must have been a big 
one, for a pearl found off the coast of Chiriqui weighed 
42 carats — a carat is 3^ grains — and was about the 
size of a quail's egg. The Chiriqui pearl was a dark one 
and sold for $5000." 



56 A Central American Journey 

"I didn't know they had dark pearls," said Billy. 

"Empress Eugenie had a famous necklace of black 
pearls, for which she had a fancy," said Mrs. Carroll. 
"There are rose-colored ones. Orient pearls are those 
which are perfectly round, and baroque pearls are irregular 
ones like that in your little pin, Betty." 

Mr. Carroll came along just then and took them into 
some of the shops, to buy post cards, a souvenir or two, 
and a Panama hat for Mrs. Carroll. Many of the shops 
are kept by Chinese. In a little Spanish place the clerk 
used black-bordered paper to wrap their parcel. A mem- 
ber of the firm had lately died and for a month all parcels 
would be wrapped in this paper. 

As the streets grew quieter, the Carroll party followed 
the example of the townspeople. Panama is a place 
in which everybody rests between eleven in the morn- 
ing and two in the afternoon. 




"The Spaniards drew their bows and picked up stones." 



CHAPTER SIX 



On the Trail of Columbus 

After a stay of two days in Panama, the Carroll 
party returned to Colon, where Senor Bastido rejoined 
them. He had been attending to some affairs of his own, 
and in accordance with a telegram from Mr. Carroll 
had already made arrangements for them all to take a 
fruit company's steamer up the coast to Limon, the sea- 
port of Costa Rica. 

"I wish we could go to San Salvador and see where 
Columbus landed," said Elizabeth, rather wistfully, 
as they stood on the deck of the boat watching the hurry- 
scurry on the wharves. "I can't think of one single 
thing I know about Costa Rica, and I know lots about 
the West Indies." 

"Some day," said her father, "we'll make that trip 
and see everything that is to be seen. In the meantime, 

57 



58 A Central American Journey 

don't forget that Senor Bastido is a professor of history 
in a college down here. Perhaps he can tell you some- 
thing interesting about this voyage we're making today." 

Elizabeth felt that it was doubtful. When she was 
a very tiny girl, she and Billy had listened to the wonderful 
story of the ships like great white-winged birds which 
had come to the beautiful strange islands in the Carib- 
bean, and of the people coming down to the shore to 
wonder and worship. They had "played Columbus" 
over and over again. She couldn't imagine anything 
so like a fairy tale happening on the coast of Costa Rica. 
If anything interesting had happened there, why wasn't 
it in the histories ? 

However, it was very pleasant sitting on the deck and 
looking out over the blue, sparkling waters. A sea- 
bird, wheeling and dipping on strong, sure wings above 
and around the steamer, came so near that they could 
see his bright, inquisitive eyes. 

"That bird must like us," observed Elizabeth. "He's 
been following us all the way from Colon." 

"He's after the scraps the cook throws away," said 
Billy, the matter-of-fact. 

Lucia had been chattering in Spanish to her father as 
fast as her tongue would go, but they came up from the 
other side of the deck at this moment. 

"How should you like," asked Senor Bastido, smiling 
at the children as they watched the bird skimming over 
the waves, "to live in a place where the wild birds were 
not at all afraid of you ? " 

"I guess that must be the kind of place Dr. Macgregor 
told about, 'where all the birds in Gaelic sang,'" said 
Billy, shrewdly. "There isn't any such place now, is 
there?" 



On the Trail of Columbus 59 

"Not on any of the steamer routes, I am afraid," 
answered the Central American. "I once visited a very 
tiny island, when I was yachting with a friend, where 
men hardly ever went and there were no cats. The 
birds had found it out, and they nested there year after 
year. They had not the least fear of us, and it was 
delightful. It used to be so*in Costa Rica." 

"It did?" Elizabeth's eyes widened in amazement. 
"Didn't anybody live there then?" 

"Only the Indians, and they were very kind to the 
birds, and did not allow them to be killed unless for some 
special reason. Some kinds were never harmed at all. 
Even now there are more than five hundred different 
kinds of birds in Costa Rica, of all colors and forms and 
sizes, and every kind of cunning habit that a bird can 
have. There are parrots that jabber all the time, canaries 
that sing all the time, and birds that seem never to express 
themselves in any bird language. There are tiny hum- 
ming-birds darting about among the flowers, and great 
eagles flying from mountain to mountain. There are 
also a great many beautiful species of butterflies. Fa- 
mous Paris dressmakers import them and get suggestions 
for colors and designs from them. Rutterfly jewelry 
is made from them, — I have seen some in New York. 

"Until the Spaniards came the birds were even more 
tame than most pets are, for they did not know that men 
would ever harm them. I suppose you know that we 
are sailing over the very seas that Columbus sailed on 
his fourth voyage." 

"No — are we really? When was that?" Elizabeth's 
face lighted up in sudden pleasure. It did seem, after 
all, that not all the interesting things had got into the 
histories. 



60 



A Central American Journey 



"In 1502, ten years after his discovery of the New 
World. When he and his men landed, the birds flew 
about the ships quite fearlessly, as if they wanted to 
make friends. Then what did the Spaniards do but draw 
their bows, and pick up stones, and kill as many birds 
as they could ! Those that flew away probably told 
their friends and relatives #hat had happened, for in a 
short time the birds became wild. They not only feared 
the Spaniards, but the Indians as well, and this made 
the Indians very indignant against the strangers. It is 
said that this was the first reason for their hating the 
Spaniards and trying to drive them away. When Colum- 
bus tried to found a settlement in Costa Rica the Indians 
destroyed it, and the Admiral lost many men and one 
of his ships. Finally he sailed for home." 




Pan American Union 



A scene in the town of Colon. 



On the Trail of Columbus 61 

' ' I thought the Spaniards had guns, ' ' said Billy. ' ' They 
had cannon, didn't they?" 

"The ships carried cannon, but the earliest form of 
the musket, called the matchlock, was first used at the 
battle of Pavia in 1525," explained Senor Bastido. "The 
crossbow was strung by being wound up with a sort of 
crank, and its iron-headed bolts would go through almost 
anything short of steel armor. The Genoese were always 
clever crossbowmen, and the kind of adventurers Colum- 
bus had with him would probably use the weapons they 
were accustomed to. With their metal helmets and 
body armor and their superior weapons the strangers 
looked upon the Indians as ignorant savages fit only to 
be slaves, but they found that even without any advan- 
tages the Indians were good at fighting. Spain never 
really controlled the land until 1565, when Juan Vazquez 
de Coronado was appointed governor. At that time 
the country was called Nueva Cartago. Bartolome 
de las Casas, Bishop of Chiapas, was a good friend to 
the Indians. He managed to make them understand 
that all Spaniards were not cruel or treacherous, and that 
it would be better to be friends with them than to go on 
fighting. But wasn't it a pity that the cruelty of a few 
thoughtless, greedy men should spoil a friendship like 
that between the people and the birds ? " 

"I don't suppose the men who killed the birds meant 
any harm, at that," observed Mr. Carroll. "Neither do 
boys who kill off our birds and thereby let the insects eat 
up our crops. But if I remember rightly these Costa 
Rican Indians were really quite civilized in their way." 

"Not so very far behind those who conquered them," 
assented Senor Bastido. "In 1500 Europe had no china, 
glassware, carpets, window glass, carriages, forks, or 



62 A Central American Journey 

books in common use, and their cloth was woven on small 
hand-looms. These Indians made pottery, cooking dishes, 
and jewelry, carved their furniture and altars, and wove 
cloth of bright colors. They had cotton cloth from cotton 
which they cultivated on their plantations, while Europe 
had only wool and linen. Their manners were gentle 
and their ways intelligent. I think they compared very 
well with the peasants of the Old World." 

"Did Columbus do anything else on that voyage?" 
asked Elizabeth. "Did he sail right along this coast 
where we are?" 

"Yes, but he was coming eastward. He first sighted 
land somewhere on the coast of Honduras. There he 
met with two trading canoes, one of them eight feet 
wide and as long as a galley — it was rowed by twenty 
Indians. The chief, or cacique, sat under a thatched 
canopy in the stern, with his family. The canoe was 
loaded with all sorts of things the Spaniards had never 
seen before. There were cloaks and tunics of cotton 
finely worked and dyed, hatchets, cups, and bells of 
copper, stone knives, wooden swords edged with sharp 
flints, and dishes of stone, clay, and wood. There were 
also stores of bread made of maize and a kind of beer 
also made from it, and cacao beans for food and money, 
which the Spaniards took for a new kind of almond. 
Columbus did not harm these Indians, and gave them 
some things in exchange for their goods. He took on 
board his ship one old chief named Giumba, who seemed 
to be the wisest, in order to learn something about the 
country, and later sent him home to his own country 
with some presents. 

" Just the other side of Cape Gracias a Dios in Honduras, 
Columbus found Indians who made such large holes 



On the Trail of Columbus 



63 




Indian women of Central America, showing native dress. Streets 
at certain times are full of such women carrying home food. 



in their ear lobes that he called that part La Costa de la 
Oreja — The Coast of the Ear. 

"As he sailed farther along the coast, Columbus saw 
monkeys and alligators, which made him think he must 
be somewhere about the Ganges, as he had read of similar 
scenes in the travels of Marco Polo. At one place — 
some think it was Bluefields in Nicaragua — Indians 
swam out to the ship with cotton garments and orna- 
ments of pale gold to trade. Columbus gave them some 
presents, but would not trade, because he hoped they 
would bring something more valuable ; and when the 
Spaniards landed they found all the gifts he had given 
them neatly tied up, lying on the beach. They didn't 
want anything except in fair trade. I am inclined to 
think the place was Puerto Limon in Costa Rica." 

"Why, that's where we are going!" cried Elizabeth; 
"isn't it, father?" 



64 A Central American Journey 

"It is," replied Mr. Carroll, smiling. "What's your 
reason for that opinion, Professor ? " 

"For one thing, it answers to the description. There 
is a small island near the shore, a river, and mountains 
in the background. However, that might be said of 
several other ports in the Caribbean. But both the 
Admiral and his son Fernando say that after this adven- 
ture he reached Almirante Bay in one day's sail of twenty- 
two leagues, or about fifty-five miles. His ships were in 
bad condition, owing to the teredo or shipworm, and 
he sailed only by day in order to examine the coast. 
I do not believe he could have made Almirante Bay in 
.a single day from either Bluefields or Greytown. We 
shall be there ourselves very shortly. You will see by 
this map that there are islands and channels through 
which Columbus would sail cautiously. The bay is 
named for him — Admiral Bay, in English." 

"What happened then?" asked Billy, as the three 
children finished passing around the map of the steamer 
route over which Columbus had gone exploring. 

"He anchored in the bay and sent boats to the islands 
to see if they could find signs of any gold in the neighbor- 
hood. They were told of a better place for trading a 
few miles farther on, and the next day they found their 
way through a narrow channel to a larger bay now called 
Chiriqui Lagoon. Here they found Indians who wore 
many gold ornaments in the shape of eagles, frogs, and 
other animals and plates, hung around the neck, which 
Columbus took for mirrors of gold, as they may have been. 
The pilot said afterward that eighty canoes gathered about 
the Spanish ships in one place, all eager to trade." 

" What did he give them for their gold ? " inquired Billy. 

"The things they liked best were needles and hawk 



On the Trail of Columbus 



65 



bells. In those days hawking was a popular sport, and 
the hawk, or rather falcon, was fitted with a tiny bell 
on the foot, so that the hunter could tell where it was. 
Otherwise he would lose his bird if it happened to alight 
in tall grass or thick woodlands. These little bells were 
easily packed, and the Indians were delighted with them." 

"Where was it that the birds came down to the ships ? " 
asked Elizabeth. 

"Probably along the coast we are coming to. There 
was trouble with the Indians at several places after they 
left Chiriqui Lagoon. It may have been due to that 
news traveling along the coast from one village to another ; 
no one can be sure." 




Different styles of Maya textiles. Huipils or waists are worn as 
shown by the girl in the picture. 



66 A Central American Journey 

"I wonder if he had weather as beautiful as this?" 
suggested Mrs. Carroll. "It is absolutely perfect." 

"We know that he did not," Senor Bastido smiled. 
" In fact, he had so serious a time of it that he called this 
the 'Coast of the Changing Winds.' He had had such 
a hard voyage thus far with head winds all the way that 
he thought he would run back to Veragua and see if he 
could find out anything about the gold mines he had 
heard of there. Then the wind changed and there was a 
gale from the west. It was a little earlier in the season 
than this — about mid-December. I have his very words 
here in my notebook, I think — yes, this is his account 
of it, written to the King and Queen : 

"For nine days I wandered as one lost, without hope of salva- 
tion. Never have eyes seen the sea so high and ugly, or so much 
foam. The wind was not available for making headway, and did 
not permit us to run for any shelter. There I was, held in that 
sea turned into blood and seething like a caldron upon a huge fire. 
So awesome a sky was never seen ; for a day and a night it blazed 
like a furnace, vomiting forth sheets and bolts of lightning until, 
after each one, I looked to see whether it had not carried away 
my masts and sails. With such frightful fury they fell upon us 
that we all believed the ships would founder. During the whole 
time the water never ceased falling from the skies ; not in what 
would be called rain, but rather as though another Deluge were 
upon us. My people were already so worn out that they courted 
death, to be free from such continued martyrdom. The ships, 
for the second time, lost boats, anchors, cables, and sails, and were 
leaking. When it was our Lord's pleasure, I sought Puerto Gordo 
and there repaired as well as I could. 

"The port which Columbus named Puerto Gordo is 
supposed to be Limon Bay in Panama, from which we 
started this morning in leaving Colon. According to 
the account of Fernando, the son of Columbus, who was 



On the Trail of Columbus 67 

with him on this voyage, it was three leagues east of 
the mouth of the Chagres River. He says that the 
Indians called this port Huiva, and that they lived in 
huts in the trees like birds, laying sticks across from 
bough to bough and building on them. The Spaniards 
thought they did this for fear of griffins. You know 
in those days people believed in all sorts of curious crea- 
tures. Possibly they took some great tropical lizard 
for a griffin. But I see that we are nearing Bocas del 
Toro." 

"Some adventures," commented Billy. "Nine days 
getting from here to Colon — whew !" 

"Bocas del Toro — mouth of the bull," said Mrs. 
Carroll. "I wonder how it got that queer name?" 

"Bocas means port as well as mouth — and mouth is 
an old word for port in English," explained Senor Bastido. 
"There is a cliff as you come into the bay that looks 
from one point like a bull lying down. The name dates 
from the very earliest times. Some day this will be the 
eastern terminal of the railway line from David. I have 
a friend who is confident that Costa Rica will some day 
be a resort for tourists from both North and South 
America. In that case Almirante Bay may be as famous 
as the Bay of Naples." 




The chirimoya or anona, sometimes called the custard apple, 
fruit is grown throughout Central America. 



This 



CHAPTER SEVEN 
A Plantation in Costa Rica 

Limon, the seaport of Costa Rica, is a good deep- 
water port convenient for shipping, with about 15,000 
people. But it is low, it is damp, it is hot, and it is dirty. 
The only interesting thing about it to the Carroll children 
was that Columbus had once landed there and made 
gifts to admiring Indians. As it was, Elizabeth said 
that she had never before known what people meant 
by feeling "boiling hot," and Billy stated that he felt 
"like a wet rag." 

Senor Bastido and Lucia were going on at once to 
San Jose with friends, and after Mr. Carroll had attended 
to some affairs for his company in Limon the Carrolls 
would follow. 

"We aren't going to stay here long, are we, mother?" 
queried Elizabeth. 

68 



A Plantation in Costa Rica 69 

"Not unless you would like to visit a banana planta- 
tion," answered her mother. "Your father says we 
can go on with the others if we like, but old Mr. Brad- 
ford, whom we visited when I was here before, has asked 
us to come out and spend the day." 

Billy and Elizabeth decided instantly for the plantation. 

It was not a long journey by rail to Mr. Bradford's 
estate, which was between Limon and Bocas del Toro. 
The children felt that they were really now in the tropics. 

" Did Columbus see real monkeys and alligators ? " 
asked Elizabeth, with her fascinated eyes on the green 
tropical world outside. "Or did he only think he did?" 

"He must have seen them," replied her mother. "On 
the old maps the Chagres River is marked Rio Lagartos. 
The Spaniards called the creature el lagarto, — the lizard, 
— and that is where we get the word ' alligator.' I suppose 
none of them had ever seen a crocodile, although Columbus 
seems to have known about them. But they knew all 
about lizards." 

"Did bananas grow wild here then?" asked Billy. 

"Not wild; the Indians used to cultivate them. My 
mother used to tell me that she was a grown woman 
before she ever saw a banana, and now nearly ten million 
bunches are shipped in a single year from this little 
country of Costa Rica. Two thirds go to our country, 
and the rest to England." 

"How do they keep them from spoiling?" asked 
Billy, with sudden interest; he had never thought of 
that before. 

"You will have to ask Mr. Bradford ; he has probably 
forgotten more than I ever knew about bananas," an- 
swered Mrs. Carroll. "He was born on the next farm 
to my grandfather's in Maine, but he has lived here for 



70 A Central American Journey 

more than thirty years without once going back. That 
is his house ; you can just see the roofs of the buildings 
through the trees." 

The lean, rugged face of the old man looked odd among 
the tropical shrubs and blossoms of his gardens, and still 
odder was the Maine accent which he had never lost in 
all this time. Yet he seemed quite at home in this 
country next door to the equator, and before long he had 
made them feel at home as well. 

"How did I happen to settle down here?" he said 
presently. "Lots of people have asked me that. Why, 
I wasn't more than a year or two older than you are, 
son, when I first got a glimpse of this very coast. I was 
a cabin boy on my uncle's ship when he put in at Bocas 
del Toro to see if 'twould pay to take on a cargo of bananas. 
He was a Cape Cod man, and Captain Baker of his 
town had brought some up to New York from Jamaica 
the year before — in 1870. That was the first time 
bananaswere ever sold to any profit in the United States. 

"My uncle — Cap'n Nate, we called him; his name 
was Nathan Thatcher — knew about this coast down 
here, and he had an idea it was the right land for bananas. 
Like most o' the old Maine sea-captains he knew more 
or less about farming. He took some to Boston that 
voyage, but they didn't keep, and time they got to mar- 
ket a tarantula that had nested in one of the bunches 
came out, pretty nearly the size of a teacup, and scared 
folks into fits. Uncle Nate never really lost faith in his 
idea, though, and neither did I. I saved up my money 
and he lent me a little more, and by and by I came down 
here and started my plantation on this very spot." 

"What did you do first?" asked Billy, eagerly. 

"We-ell, the first thing I had to do was to clear away 



A Plantation in Costa Rica 



71 




"He seemed quite at home in this country next door to the 
equator." 



72 A Central American Journey 

the jungle. You can't turn your back for five minutes 
here without a thicket growing up as high as your head. 
My men went out last year with machetes and cleared 
a new plantation and found an old Spanish wall half 
buried in there. Built of reef-rock it was, that you find 
under the water all along the coast here, almost as light 
as pumice stone and easy to work, but hardens up after 
a while till a cannon wouldn't make a dent in it, I guess. 
The mortar they used was nearly as hard. I wish I had 
their recipe. We had to dynamite some of it to get it 
out of our way. I expect it was built in the old governors' 
time by poor Indian slaves' labor. 

"After the ground is clear I plant my banana sprouts 
about six feet apart. They don't take long to grow, 
and each tree bears one bunch. Then the plant dies, 
but meanwhile new shoots or scions have sprung up 
around it and these begin to bear." 

" It must look beautiful when the fruit is all ripe and 
yellow, on the trees," observed Elizabeth. 

" Maybe it would if it stayed there to get ripe," an- 
swered the old planter. "We always pick the bunches 
green." 

"What for?" inquired Billy. 

"Pick your fruit when it's just grown and not ripe if 
you mean to ship it North and have it fit to sell," said 
Mr. Bradford. "I shouldn't like to see a shipload of 
bananas come into New York that had been shipped ripe 
from any port in this latitude. Even the fruit we use 
here is picked green. If we left the bunch on the tree, 
it would attract birds and insects and the first of the 
bananas to ripen would split open and none of it would 
be fit to eat." 

The planter stopped a passing laborer and took a small 



A Plantation in Costa Rica 73 

cluster of bananas from his load. "These are the little 
fig bananas ; you don't get them in your markets ; but 
try them and see if they aren't the best you ever ate." 

The Carrolls agreed with him. "I think all fruit 
tastes more delicious where it grows," said Mrs. Carroll. 
"Still, I should like to see more tropical fruits come 
into our markets." 

"There's been a good beginning made," said Mr. 
Bradford. "When I was a boy we had only oranges, 
and those hardly ever except at Christmas. Maybe 
some day chirimoyas and zapotas will be as common 
in the North as oranges are now. I hear the avocado is 
cheaper than it used to be there. Some people call it 
the alligator pear, I suppose because it isn't a pear and 
grows on a tree where an alligator couldn't reach it. 
There is an alligator apple, a kind of custard-apple, 
that they like, but it's not fit for human food. However, 
I rather think bananas can be raised cheaper than most 
other things here." 

"How many are there on a bunch?" asked Billy. 

"The biggest bunch I ever cut had three hundred, 
but I never got another nearly as big." 

"And you get three for five at the grocery," added 
Elizabeth. "I mean we buy three for five cents." 

"I suppose on an average," said Mr. Bradford, "it 
costs about ninety-five cents to grow a bunch of bananas 
and send it to your market, and the importer calls a 
dollar a fair price for selling. We sort them into 'firsts' 
and 'seconds.' Bunches growing nine hands or over 
are firsts and those from seven to nine hands seconds. 
If they are less than seven hands, they're not worth 
shipping. A bunch like that one up there will weigh 
about eighty pounds." 



74 



A Central American Journey 




A Plantation in Costa Rica 75 

The children were gazing up at the great waving leaves 
nearly twenty feet above them, when Billy asked sud- 
denly, "Is that a plant or a tree?" 

"For some time after I started raising bananas I 
didn't know," the old man answered with a chuckle. 
"You see, when I was a boy we didn't get a chance to 
go to school after we were big enough to be doing some- 
thing else, and a cabin boy or a mate isn't likely to have 
many books. Which would you think ? " 

Billy went closer to the tree. "I don't know. The 
leaves look like a plant, and it hasn't any bark. But 
I didn't know a plant could be so big." 

"It is a plant. One of those botany professors came 
here and stayed with me for six months once, on some 
business for the Department of Agriculture, and he told 
me things about bananas that I hadn't ever known. 
Maybe I told him one or two that he hadn't known. 

"You know the plantain that grows beside the road 
at home ? That's a kind of poor relation to this banana 
tree. The base of the leaf wraps round the stem here 
just like a plantain's. The shoots don't grow as a sapling 
does. You know you can cut your name on the bark of 
a young tree and find it there years afterward, because 
the tree grows from the outside in. You find rings inside 
to show the number of years it has lived. This banana 
plant grows the other way — from the inside out, putting 
on layer after layer. You can actually see it grow some- 
times. I've watched a banana stalk shoot up two or 
three inches in a few minutes, and leaves unfolding from 
the center of the stalk inside of thirty-six hours. Then 
comes the big, heart-shaped, scaly bud that opens into 
a cluster of blossoms." 

" I suppose you have your troubles as the farmers do," 



76 A Central American Journey 

suggested Mrs. Carroll. "Or maybe you have learned 
how to meet all the difficulties ? " 

Mr. Bradford laughed. "If I had, ma'am, I'd borrow 
a million and buy out the fruit company. There are 
years when profits are good, and others when the loss 
is bad. One year maybe a flood wrecks a bridge and I 
can't get the fruit to market in time. One season a 
drought almost ruined me. The year after a nice young 
plantation was blown into the middle of next week or 
rather next year by a high wind. It took a year to recover 
from that. Some years labor is hard to get, and it may 
not work after you do get it. 

"There's an old saying about not putting all your eggs 
in one basket, that suits the banana trade. I have planta- 
tions in four different places, and there is very seldom 
any one trouble that hits all of them the same year, so 
that I am sure of a crop from one or another. The big 
companies, of course, do the same thing on a much bigger 
scale. No man with a small capital could expect to make 
his fortune in bananas here now. He might get his 
money's worth in experience but not in fruit. In the 
old days of sailing ships we never made anything on 
them. Bananas must have a quick steamer with cold 
storage quarters, and quick handling when they reach 
port." 

"Do you think you will ever go back to the United 
States?" asked Mrs. Carroll. The old planter shook 
his head. 

"I've been here too long for that. Now and then a 
man is made so that he likes the tropics — they get hold 
of him somehow. I was always wanting to get back 
here after I'd seen the place once. Now we'll go back 
to the house and I'll show you something we make from 



A Plantation in Costa Rica 



77 




An Indian Dwelling in Costa Rica. 



bananas that you've never seen. My cook is a San 
Domingo woman, and she says they make it there." 

It was a sweetmeat made of ripe bananas cut into thin 
slices, dusted with sugar and dried in the sun. The 
slices were turned repeatedly while drying, and each time 
dusted with fine sugar. Mr. Bradford also showed them 
banana flour made from unripe bananas ground and sifted 
after being well dried, and explained that an aluminum 
sieve must be used, or the flour would turn black. Fiber 
which can be woven into coarse cloth or made into 
hammocks is another product of the banana tree. 
Banana vinegar and sugar can also be made. A cousin 



78 A Central American Journey 




A Plantation in Costa Rica 79 

of the banana is the abaca from which Manila hemp is 
made. 

Mr. Bradford had still another resource in case of the 
banana crop failing, for a part of his plantation was 
given over to cacao. Cacao can be grown on banana 
farms which have ceased to produce bananas, as well as 
on new land. Unlike bananas, this crop will keep for 
some time ; and the Costa Rica cacao is of unusually 
fine quality. 

"The good of being an American, son," the old planter 
observed, with a hand on Billy's shoulder, "is that you 
don't have to tie yourself to one thing. You never get 
over being interested . in all sorts of things, so long as 
you stay on this interesting old planet. If both my 
crops failed I think I could make a living as a fisherman, 
and if the sea dried up I'd take a chance as a carpenter. 
But I know more about bananas than I do about any 
other one crop, and so long as the market is as good as 
it is now I expect to raise bananas." 

Mr. Bradford and Billy had taken a liking to each 
other. On the way back to Limon, Billy had dreams of 
some day living in just such a charming old Spanish 
house with wide verandas and fountains, and shipping 
millions of bananas to countries in which the tempting 
fruit was now scarce and dear. He entirely overlooked 
the matter of the hot weather. 

Elizabeth, for her part, was absorbed in a pretty Indian 
basket Mr. Bradford had given her, filled with fruit, 
and Mrs. Carroll was studying the curious stitch of a 
Panama grass-cloth bag which was her share of the gifts, 
and trying to make out how it was made. It had a 
very long plaited handle and served the native in place 
of a pocket or pouch. A part of the design was the 



80 A Central American Journey 

swastika, found on Central American monuments as 
it is found in Chinese and Egyptian and Norwegian art. 
How it reached the New World no one can tell. 

"Mother," said Elizabeth, as they came back to their 
hotel in Limon, "I think this has been a lovely day." 

Nevertheless, they were glad to leave the old seaport 
next morning and begin the long climb to San Jose. 

So long as the train moved through the lowland near 
the coast the products were all tropical. Bananas, fruits 
of many sorts, cacao, and rubber grew there. Little 
huts appeared, each with its own piece of ground, the 
men lying about smoking or sleeping, the women, bare- 
footed, doing a little gardening or .cooking, and the chil- 
dren playing about in the very simplest clothing. In 
the market place of a Costa Rican town one may find 
five varieties of Indian corn, beans of several kinds, pota- 
toes, cabbage, onions, and spinach, sold by market people, 
many of whom sit on the ground. They also sell vanilla 
beans, herbs, dyes, or anything for which there is a 
demand. Mr. Carroll told his wife that a Costa Rican 
dollar, worth about 45 cents in the money of the United 
States, would buy enough vegetables to feed the family 
a week. 

"Do you suppose we could arrange it to five in our 
house at home and do our marketing in Costa Rica?" 
inquired she. 

"Something like it, possibly," replied her husband. 
"All these rich uplands may some day be planted with 
strawberries and other fruits to supply the markets of 
the North as Southern California does. If the country 
ever becomes a great hotel district, there is a great oppor- 
tunity here for enterprising truck farmers to supply the 
hotels." 



A Plantation in Costa Rica 81 

As their train began to climb out of the low country to 
a tableland, the Carrolls suddenly realized that they were 
passing from the tropical to the temperate zone. When 
a traveler starts at sea level near the equator and ascends 
a mountain one mile, he may experience the same drop 
in temperature that would be felt in going north a thousand 
miles. After ascending another mile he will find the 
air cooler in summer than in a part of North America 
2500 miles north of the equator. Mrs. Carroll, accord- 
ing to instructions from her husband and Senor Bastido, 
had provided wraps for herself and the children, but in 
Limon it had seemed impossible that they could need 
them. 

Now the change in temperature and even more the 
changes in trees, flowers, and birds before their very 
eyes as they looked out of the car windows, seemed like 
magic. No moving picture could have been so surpris- 
ing and so fascinating. 

Soon they were in country which looked like a wood- 
land region of the United States, and familiar trees and 
flowers appeared. Orioles and other Northern birds 
appeared also, and Mrs. Carroll said she was sure that 
some of them recognized her and wondered if their human 
neighbors had taken to spending the winter in the South. 
No more bananas, rubber, or cacao could be seen. Mr. 
Carroll told them that this was a lumber, cattle, and 
mineral country and that gold and silver had been mined 
in the mountains, before Columbus came. 

"Isn't there some there now?" asked Elizabeth. 

"Probably; but it would take capital and machinery 
to get it out. The gold the Indians showed Columbus 
had probably been gathered a little at a time during 
centuries and made into ornaments handed down from 



82 



A Central American Journey 




A Plantation in Costa Rica 83 

one generation to another. Besides, there could never 
have been any such rich gold mines here as he hoped to 
find. You notice all through the old chronicles that 
the Indians kept telling the Spaniards of wonderful 
gold mines that existed somewhere else — often in the 
country of one of their enemies. Indians have a strong 
sense of humor, and I suspect they sometimes played 
little jokes on the invaders." 



CHAPTER EIGHT 
Ups and Downs in Central America 

"I never saw so many pretty girls together in my life 
as I have seen this morning," commented Mrs. Carroll 
the next day. Senor Bastido and Lucia had been show- 
ing their friends the sights of San Jose, and the whole 
party now sat listening to the military band in Morazan 
Park. 

"They wear such pretty clothes and they seem so 
happy," added Elizabeth. "Mother, I like the way they 
dress here. They don't seem like just people walking 
around, they look like a party, with their slippers and 
bright shawls and everything." 

"Picturesque is the word you are in search of, Betty," 
said her father. "Yes, the costume is picturesque — 
they call the gay shawl or rather scarf a rebozo, by the 
way — they've adapted the best points of both Indian 
and Spanish dress to their own style of living. The 
muslin gowns and satin slippers are Spanish, and the 
rebozo is worn in place of the lace mantilla that used 
to be the universal head-covering of Spanish ladies. 
I believe that hats have come into fashion lately to some 
extent." 

"It is a pity," said Mrs. Carroll, "for nothing suits 
a Spanish girl's face like the mantilla, and no one else 
can wear it so well. I am so glad we have that photo- 
graph of you, Lucia, in your great-grandmother's black 
lace and tortoise-shell comb. I hope you will set the 
fashion here when you are a young lady." 

Elizabeth dimpled and laughed. "It didn't suit me 
when I tried it on, did it, mother?" 

84 



Ups and Downs in Central America 85 

"No; you looked like a little girl dressing up — as 
you were," laughed her mother. "But so does Lucia 
when she wears a gingham sunbonnet. I do like people 
best in their national costumes." 

"There are all sorts here," put in Sefior Bastido. 
"Some 10,000 of the people of Costa Bica are of Spanish 
descent, and as many more mixed Spanish and Indian. 
There is a large percentage of foreign-born residents — 
Italians, English, Germans, and people from your own 
country." 

"We're foreigners here, ourselves," remarked Elizabeth 
thoughtfully, as they strolled back to their hotel. " That's 
funny. I don't feel foreign." 

"Perhaps you would, if you saw people smiling and 
pointing out the difference between your ways and theirs 
as if you were ridiculous," her father observed. "I 
am very much pleased with you, Betty. You are enjoy- 
ing Lucia's country just as she did ours. If you go on in 
that way, you'll be sure to have a good time." 

"Nobody would notice anything about the clothes of 
some of these people if they went down Fifth Avenue 
in 'em," said Billy; "There's a man with spats on." 

"I was talking with a clothing merchant last night 
at the hotel," said Mr. Carroll, "and he told me that 
the hardest fight he had when he came was to convince 
the manufacturers at home that the Costa Bicans knew 
anything about good style. He found as he became 
acquainted here that many Central Americans are quite 
at home in Paris, send their children to be educated in 
France, and look to the French designers for styles just 
as we do. He received a large consignment of spats 
by our boat, and he was congratulating himself on the 
fact that he had succeeded in getting what he wanted, 



86 A Central American Journey 

— quiet colors and styles. He says that people here 
who have money to dress well want clothing in subdued 
colors and good taste, and that it is the greatest possible 
mistake to count on 'unloading' on them conspicuous 
goods which they do not want." 

Senor Bastido, who had stopped to speak with friends, 
now crossed the plaza and rejoined them, in front of the 
cathedral. 

"These fig trees," he observed, "are as old as the oldest 
building here. They were planted by the Spaniards. 
I once ate some figs in the garden of the President of 
Peru, from a fig tree four hundred years old planted by 
Pizarro." 

It seemed a long way from Pizarro the swineherd's 
boy and his wild career of plunder, to this brilliant plaza 
with its university and its million-dollar opera house. 
As the Carroll party went slowly on, enjoying every new 
and picturesque bit of street life, Billy suddenly discovered 
what made the city so strange. 

"Everything is one story high," he said. "They 
wouldn't have much use here for an elevator man." 

"Earthquakes, my son," answered his father. "Now 
and then one occurs, and the one-story house does not 
suffer as a tall building would. That great mountain 
over there, Irazu, in 1723 almost destroyed Cartago, 
the old capital, thirteen miles from here. In 1841 it 
broke out again and a stream of fiery lava poured down 
the side of the mountain. There may be another eruption 
some day, and there may not." 

The Carroll children looked rather solemn. It seemed 
strange to be sauntering along so happily in the sunshine 
and know that that unseen fiery furnace was blazing 
away deep down in the heart of the volcano. Lucia 



Ups and Downs in Central America 87 

was quite undisturbed. She had heard of earthquakes 
ever since she could remember, and had been in more than 
one ; and none of the people she knew ever thought 
of making themselves unhappy on that score. 

At this point a brass band and a company of bell 
ringers could be heard coming down a side street. When 
they appeared, the students and school children on their 
way home stopped where they were and knelt down, all 
traffic halted, and the workmen busy on a half-built 
house stopped their work and knelt down, too. Senor 
Bastido and Mr. Carroll removed their hats, and Billy 
in some bewilderment hastily followed their example. 
Elizabeth and Mrs. Carroll were too much amazed to 
speak. 

"It is a funeral," said Mr. Carroll, just loud enough 
for them to hear. 

The priest and his assistants were robed in splendid 
vestments. Until the funeral had passed, no attention 
whatever was paid to anything else. Then life went 
on as before. 

"There were notices of this funeral posted up in the 
streets, I remember, this morning," said Mr. Carroll. 
"I knew a man once who came here on important business 
and had the bad taste to look on at such a procession as 
if it were a show, even making some joking remark to the 
man whom he had come to see. He couldn't understand 
why he never got the favor he wanted from that man. 
He was a well-behaved enough fellow at home, but there 
must have been some lack of decent feeling in him to 
make him do as he did here. Of course, it is even more 
important to be courteous in a foreign country than in 
your own, because you are a sort of unofficial diplomat." 

"It is fortunate for us that the rude ones do not always 



88 A Central American Journey 

see that," commented Sefior Bastido, laughingly. "As 
it is, they give us the advantage of knowing them as 
they are and not as they wish us to believe they are." 

"It is all the more pity," remarked Mrs. Carroll, 
"that those of us who really have no desire to be rude 
should be thoughtless enough to seem so. I am afraid 
that without you and Lucia to give me a word of explana- 
tion now and then the children and I should have got 
on much less easily. There are so many small customs 
that everybody takes for granted until they are ques- 
tioned by some stranger — it's so everywhere." 

"Father," said Billy, that afternoon, as they sat on 
the cool veranda waiting for the heat of the day to be 
over, "I've been reading in that book about the explorers 
in old times, and they were awfully careful, some of them, 
to find out what the Indians' customs were and make 
friends with them. Was it just because they thought 
they were part of a great empire?" 

"Partly, no doubt," said Mr. Carroll, glancing over 
the account of the old voyages. "Columbus and many 
of those who came after him expected to find somewhere 
inland the empire of the Great Khan of Tartary of whom 
they had heard. Conquerors like Attila and Genghis 
Khan from the great plains of Asia, you know, had even 
invaded Europe. Perhaps Columbus had heard of 
Tamerlane the great descendant of Genghis Khan. He 
conquered most of Asia less than a hundred years before 
these voyages. Some of the customs of our Indians are 
rather like those of wild tribes of Asia, and the Indians 
here were just such red-brown or yellow-brown people, 
understanding gold-work and the weaving of cotton, and 
living partly by agriculture, as Columbus expected to see. 
Of course, if they became friendly with Spain, and were 



Ups and Downs in Central America 89 

subjects of a ruler like Tamerlane, it would mean a 
wonderful change in the history of Spain. She might 
rule the whole world. But Columbus was a trader, and 
he must also have been thinking of the chances for trade 
with such a people. It was worth his while to find out 
what they liked and how they lived, and what they 
would pay for in gold. Spain was a manufacturing 
country in those days. There was nothing like her steel 
weapons and leather-work." 

"Pizarro wasn't a trader," remarked Billy. "Or 
was he?" 

"No ; I should call him a robber, and a low kind of one 
at that. When Pedrarias became governor of Panama 
and executed Balboa, Pizarro got a share of land, as one 
of the captains of Balboa's expedition, and some Indians 
to work it. But he had no idea of settling down to the 
slow job of a planter, and he hadn't forgotten what the 
Indians had said about the rich country to the south. 
Not having the money to fit out ships himself, he went 
to a priest, Father Luque, who owned the revenues of 
the island of Taboga. Father Luque agreed to raise the 
money, and Almagro, another soldier of fortune from the 
lowest ranks of society, agreed to fit out and take charge of 
the ships. Pizarro was to command the expedition, and 
Pedrarias allowed it to sail on condition that he got one 
fourth of the plunder. 

" So you see, it was in a way a business expedition. 
Pizarro expected to loot the country and pay himself 
and his partners in that way. Most people thought 
Father Luque must be crazy ; in fact, his nickname for 
some time after that was Padre Loco, the mad priest. 

"There was an old story which crops up like a fairy 
tale all through Spanish American history of that time, 



90 A Central American Journey 

about a secret way for ships through the Isthmus. It 
was probably a pass over which large canoes could be 
carried. The Spaniards already considered themselves 
masters of the Pacific, and if they found such a channel 
and held it, you see what it would mean' to their trade. 
The gold and pearls they had already found in the Isthmus 
had set them to imagining all sorts of marvelous things. 
Every adventurer dreamed of making his fortune. It 
really seemed as if Spain might practically own the world. 
But I don't believe the world was intended to be owned 
with so little trouble as that." 

"When Lucia first came to live with us," observed 
Billy, "she had just learned English and she used to 
say, ' Not for the whole world ! ' when she promised she 
wouldn't do something. Mother heard her one day and 
she said, ' What would you- do with the world, Lucia, if 
you had it?' Lucia thought a minute and then she 
said, 'Well, I wouldn't keep it. The world ought to be 
shared!'" 

Mr. Carroll laughed. "That's not a bad motto. 
If the early conquistadores had been willing to share 
with t'other people, they might have left more to their 
descendants. The Spanish settlers who were kind and 
just to the Indians never had any reason to regret it." 

Senor Bastido came up, his broad, cool Panama in his 
hands. "Do I hear you speak of Indians? That is odd, 
because I came to ask if you would care to visit an Indian 
village tomorrow." 

"Real Indians?" Billy asked excitedly. 

"Real Indians, Talamancas, living just as their people 
did four hundred years ago." 

"How do you get there?" asked Mr. Carroll. 

"By railway and on mule-back. I know something 



Ups and Downs in Central America 91 




A group of Indian huts in the Costa Rican forest. 



92 A Central American Journey 

of the dialect, and our mozos (drivers) will be Indians, 
so that you can talk with the people if you like." 

"I don't see anything to do but to accept your sug- 
gestion with many thanks," said Mr. Carroll, laughing 
at Billy's radiant face. "That is, if mother likes it, 
and I am sure she will." 

Mrs. Carroll proved as enthusiastic as Billy, and 
Elizabeth, if anything, more so. Therefore early the 
next day the whole party set off for the Indian village. 

"You have seen those of our people who attend the 
opera and visit Paris," said Senor Bastido. "Now you 
will see Costa Ricans who own nothing, build nothing, 
and live as they have always lived, on their own 
land." 

The little group of huts in the forest looked like a village 
of birds' nests. Near by, on an open space of ground, 
the Indians raised their crops. Little wiry horses and 
thin cattle grazed about. The huts were thatched with 
grass, and the floors were of earth. Billy had rather 
expected wigwams, but now he remembered that he had 
read of these only among the Indians who moved about 
and lived by hunting over great areas of country. The 
Indians received them in a friendly way, but showed little 
excitement, and much conversation took place in Eng- 
lish, Spanish, and Indian. The old chief knew a little 
Spanish, and by patient endeavor and a good deal of 
tact Mr. Carroll won him to talk of things in which Indians 
are really much concerned. 

"You white people have your cities and plantations," 
the old man said, his keen black eyes watching their 
faces. "Why do you wish to take our land from us? 
You do not care to live here, and we Indians like the 
forest far better than your cities. Why should these 



Ups and Downs in Central America 93 

forests not be left for ourselves and our children, since 
you do not need them for yourselves ? 

"White people come to trade with us, but they do not 
trade fairly. They give us bad whisky to drink, and 
make us crazy, so that we have no sense. Then they 
take our bananas or chocolate or whatever we have to 
sell, and pay what they choose. My nephew found a 
gold nugget in a mountain stream. It was worth maybe 
fifty dollars. But when he had had a drink or two of 
bad whisky, he sold it for a dollar." 

Lucia was translating the old man's speech to Mrs. 
Carroll and the children as fast as he made it, and when 
she came to this her eyes flashed. 

"I guess," said Billy, soberly, "that the early settlers 
didn't do all the cheating." 

"Father told me once," said Lucia, "when I was a 
very little girl, that if an Indian finds that you deal 
fairly with him he will do the same with you; and he 
never forgets. One day father wanted some tagua nuts 
to show a gentleman who was visiting him, and he asked 
the mozo about them, and the mozo went I don't know 
how many miles to get him some." 

"What are tagua nuts?" asked Mrs. Carroll. 

"The tree is a kind of palm, but only about ten to 
twenty feet high, and grows in clusters, and the flowers 
smell very sweet. The nut has inside a number of hard 
white seeds as big as little potatoes. The Indians sell 
them sometimes to the German buyers, and they are 
made into vegetable ivory." 

"Dear me !" said Mrs. Carroll, "that must be what the 
handle of this umbrella is made of. I knew it could not 
be real ivory, although it looks so like it, and the clerk 
told me it was a vegetable substitute. I wonder who 



94 



A Central American Journey 




Ups and Downs in Central America 95 

gets the difference between what the Indians were paid 
and the value of the umbrella handles and buttons and 
chessmen made from the kernels ? " 

Senor Bastido had been talking with the old chief in 
the Indian language for several minutes. As the party 
took its departure he said : "I have found out something 
today that I never could get an Indian to tell me before. 
Perhaps you know that a dead Indian's bow and arrow 
and other property are always buried with him. I have 
heard explanations, of course, but not from the Indians 
themselves. There is no use in trying to trap an Indian 
into telling what he does not choose to tell. But while 
you were talking to him I wrote down what he "had told 
me in my notebook. This is what he said, word for 
word: 

"You ask me why we bury a man's property with 
him and do not give it to his children. This is the reason. 
When an Indian dies, he will never come back to live 
in the forest. He does not need the things which were 
his. To give them to his son and his women would make 
them lazy, and the other Indians would be envious. In 
the woods and fields there is plenty for all. If those 
who are alive will work, they will have no need of the 
things of the dead. When they know that they must 
work, they work. The women marry and have children. 
When the parents are old, the children support them. 
This is better for all. We Indians believe that all should 
work and take from the ground what is fresh, day by day, 
year by year. Those who have not earned their living, 
and who will not work, have no right to share what others 
earn. We do not understand why white people think 
this is wrong. We think it is the right way for every- 
body.'" 



96 A Central American Journey 

"Did you make any attempt to meet his argument?" 
asked Mr. Carroll. 

"No," said Senor Bastido, slipping his notebook into 
his pocket, "I did not. Civilization, to him, would 
probably mean sewing machines, patent leather shoes, 
ready-made clothing, factory life, and cold-storage food. 
I do not feel at all sure that he is not a wise leader for 
his people. If ever we can show him a civilization 
better than his own by his own standards, he will have 
some reason to change his views. But he will judge 
us always by his standards, not ours." 




"The trail narrowed abruptly until the mules had to go in single file." 



CHAPTER NINE 
Mules and Mountain Trails 

" I wish we didn't have to go back to San Jose tonight," 
said Elizabeth, regretfully. She had grown really fond 
of her shaggy little burro and wanted to see more of 
him. 

"Did anybody tell you we did?" queried her father. 

"B-but, Daddy, we aren't going to stay in that Indian 
village, are we?" Elizabeth was puzzled and rather 
dismayed as they stood waiting for the others to come up. 

"No ; but if you are really desirous of a little more of 
this wild life we may arrange to have it. Senor Bastido 
tells me that some people he knows have a cattle ranch 
here in the mountains somewhere, and that it will not 
take as long to reach it as it would to return to San Jose. 
But I thought I would see how you stood the journey 
before I said anything. Some of the cross-country 
riding here is rather rough." 

Elizabeth's bright face was proof enough that she 
was pleased with the new plan, and Billy gave an irre- 

97 



98 A Central American Journey 

pressible whoop of delight. Mrs. Carroll, when she 
heard it, was not quite so enthusiastic. She thought of 
meeting a family of strangers in her dusty traveling 
garb, and was relieved to find that an extra mule was 
in waiting at the station, loaded with the hand luggage 
of the family, and would be at the ranch as soon as they 
were. 

"I wonder if automobiles will ever come here?" said . 
Elizabeth, as they climbed the mountain trail under 
Senor Bastido's guidance. It was just wide enough 
for her to ride beside her father. 

"Aeroplanes would seem more suited to the country," 
answered Mr. Carroll. "There are some automobile 
roads in Central America, however, and there will be 
more as time goes on. When I brought your mother 
here before, we traveled more or less by diligence." 

"What's that?" 

"A diligence is a sort of stagecoach used in France 
and Spain and Italy before the days of railroads and 
still in use to some extent. It is drawn by from four 
to seven horses or mules, — in Spanish countries mules 
are used as a general thing. It can go where an auto- 
mobile could not, because it is lighter." 

"It can't be very fast," said Billy. 

"With a good team and driver I have traveled forty 
miles in six hours across hilly country," said his father. 
"The fare is from five to ten dollars for a day's trip of 
from thirty to fifty miles. At the end of the trip the 
driver is paid, and the next day he returns with his 
mules. But in this part of the trail to which we are 
coming I think any sort of wheeled carriage would be 
decidedly out of place." 

Elizabeth thought so, too, for the trail narrowed 



Mules and Mountain Trails 99 

abruptly until the mules had to go in single file. Her 
father assured her that there was no danger if she sat 
still and let the wise little burro find his own way, and 
after a while she forgot to be nervous and began to enjoy 
the wild scenery about her. Billy was perfectly happy, 
and as for Lucia, she never thought of being frightened. 
She had learned to ride almost before she learned to 
walk. 

"Did you ever go in more dangerous places than this, 
Daddy?" Elizabeth inquired when they had turned into 
a fairly wide road once more and were riding through 
broken hilly country half covered with forest. 

Mr. Carroll smiled. " Not many into which I should 
care to take you, Betty. As it was, we made sure that 
these mules were good and steady when we arranged 
for them. A mule threw me over his head once, just 
after passing a ravine 1500 feet deep. If he had stumbled 
three minutes before he did I should never have met your 
mother." 

"Could anybody camp out here, Dad?" Billy in- 
quired. 

"It is possible in some parts of Central America, but 
not always very comfortable," his father answered. "I 
haven't often done it, because I have been traveling on 
business. By taking an extra mule for every two per- 
sons, to carry tent, folding cots, blankets, arid food 
supplies for emergencies, one may be independent of 
inns. One cot and the blankets are strapped to one side 
of the mule, the other cot and the cooking supplies to 
the other side, and all covered with the dark canvas that 
is used for the tent. It is always best to carry personal 
luggage in the pockets of one's own saddle. Then, if 
the pack mule runs away, it isn't so disastrous." 



100 



A Central American Journey 




Mules and Mountain Trails 101 

Mr. Carroll gave a funny look at his wife, and she 
laughed. "When your father and I were down here," 
she said, "that very thing happened. For twenty- 
four hours we had to get along with not even a tooth- 
brush or a comb, until the mule was caught." 

It was nearly sunset, and the party had a glimpse of 
a quaint old Spanish-American house among trees and 
shrubs to the left. A moment later they were riding 
up the avenue to the door, and two Indian boys appeared, 
to take charge of the mules. As the party alighted, 
brushing off the dust as best they might, and moved 
toward the broad veranda of the residence, Lucia, who 
was a little in advance, turned and faced them and made 
a graceful courtesy. 

"Welcome," she said with a pretty gesture. "My 
house is yours." 

She spoke in Spanish, but that was a phrase they had 
all heard. Senor Bastido stood aside, smiling at the 
amazement on the faces of their guests. 

"Lucia, you little witch, what do you mean? Is 
this your home ? What sort of mystery have you been 
concealing from us all this time?" asked Mrs. Carroll, 
laughing both with relief and delight as she looked about 
at the charming surroundings, — the little fountain, the 
garden, the mountains and wooded slopes in the dis- 
tance, and Lucia standing in the doorway, her eyes 
sparkling with pleasure. 

" Dear Aunt Isabel, do you like it? It was my little 
joke, you see, not to tell you before. I did not know of 
it myself until father came North this year. You see, 
my name-aunt Lucia left me some money years ago when 
I was very little, and father has been keeping it for me. 
There was also a ranch in the mountains here which she 



102 A Central American Journey 

owned, for my uncle was from Costa Rica, but no one 
thought it was worth anything until the new railroad 
came. Then father visited it and saw that the house 
was old, but could be made comfortable, and he had it 
put in order. When he asked me if I should like it for 
a Christmas gift I said I had rather have it than anything 
else in the world." 

They all laughed, for they remembered the old phrase 
the little Lucia had used so often. 

"Then I asked him not to say anything about it to you 
beforehand, but bring you here for a surprise. Is it 
really a nice surprise, Aunt Isabel?" 

"My dearest child, it is the very sweetest surprise I 
ever had," exclaimed Mrs. Carroll, taking the little girl in 
her arms. "And now if Betty and I, not to mention the 
gentlemen, may be allowed to put ourselves in order — " 

"Your rooms are all ready, and Manuela will wait 
On you," Lucia said as she led the way to delightfully 
cool and spacious apartments opening on a shady court. 
"It was so funny, Aunt Isabel, to see you wonder what 
people would think of your riding habit. We had every- 
thing packed and sent from the hotel this morning — 
you know you had hardly taken out anything yet — 
and now you shall do exactly as you please as long as 
you stay." 

"It's too lovely to be true!" cried Elizabeth, and she 
hugged Lucia. 

Next morning the children were awake early, and 
heard a queer sound which they could not associate 
with anything they could think of. When they had 
dressed and gone out to investigate, they met Lucia and 
found that what they had heard was the Indian cook 
making tortillas. These are flat cakes made of corn 



Mules and Mountain Trails 



103 



and baked on a clay griddle. The corn is shelled and 
boiled in ashes until the skin can be easily removed. It 
is then washed many times, until all taste of the ashes 
is gone. Then the corn is ground in a stone mortar 
and kept moist by adding water, so that at last it is like 
dough. A small quantity is taken between the hands 
and patted into the shape of a griddle cake and baked. 
The Indian housewife makes a supply of these in the 
morning to serve as bread for the family. 

The children also learned to like frijoles — black beans. 
They look decidedly unappetizing at first sight, but are 
really very good, especially when seasoned as Manuela 
seasoned them. They not only ate honey, but for the 
first time saw it made. 




Making tortillas or corn cakes. The corn is in the large dish ; the 
paste is made on the grinding stone ; in the background can be seen 
the tortillas cooking on a flat stone. 



104 A Central American Journey 

"The bees are good for the coffee plantations," said 
Senor Bastido. "I expect to make this ranch a sort of 
out-of-door experiment station. When I came here I 
found very small native bees in Guanacaste, where the 
Indians used a hollow log for a hive, hung beside the 
house. These bees do not seem to thrive in higher alti- 
tudes, and I thought it best to bring in some Italian 
bees for our hives here. We are told that there are 
3000 hives in Costa Rica, which produce about 150,000 
pounds a year. Fifty pounds of honey isn't so bad an 
output for laborers who feed and pay themselves !" 

"How do the bees help the coffee?" asked Billy, 
puzzled by this curious statement. 

"That is a little hard to explain unless you know bot- 
any," said Senor Bastido. "In flying from blossom to 
blossom they brush off the pollen and carry it and brush 
it off again, so that all the blossoms get their share, as 
you might say. When this goes on everywhere within 
a mile or two of the hive, it is certain to distribute the 
pollen more thoroughly than the blowing of occasional 
winds. On cacao plantations it has been found that 
without the help of insects not more than one out of 
eighty flowers will bear fruit. You see, on a well-man- 
aged plantation the animals, plants, human beings, and 
even the insects help one another, so that all are better 
off. The more honey the bees make, the more coffee 
there will be ; and the more coffee plantations come to 
flower, the more pasture there is for the bees." 

"And when you have increased your crop to a tempting 
point," said Mr. Carroll, "swarms of insects come and 
dispose of it in one night." 

"Then we shall look for some means to get the better 
of the grasshopper," said the Central American, calmly. 



Mules and Mountain Trails 



105 




Primitive beehives in Costa Rica. 



"There is also a kind of insect that sucks the blood from 
the cattle. These plagues do not come often, but when 
they do they arrive in large armies. Meanwhile we have 
at least what we produce in the years when they leave 
us in peace." | 

"Are there any snakes here?" asked Elizabeth. 

"Not in any great numbers here; they are plentiful 
in the lowlands, and some are poisonous. Common 
snakes eat so many insects and mice and other pests 
that killing them off is sometimes rather short-sighted 
policy. Nature arranges affairs in such a way, especially 
in the tropics, that to destroy one species of live creature 
entirely may mean that some equally unpleasant pest 
on which it fed will increase tremendously. I would 
rather have a few harmless toads and snakes and a large 
colony of birds police my garden than do it myself with 
insect poison." 

Billy found it interesting to hear one of the old herds- 



106 A Central American Journey 

men tell of finding gold in a stream. He never quite 
gave up the hope that he might find some himself. 

"Father," he asked one day when they were scrambling 
up a mountain trail on shaggy little burros, "do you 
think there is any gold in these mountains now?" 

"I suppose there is, more or less. It was somewhere 
about here that Veragua, the rich gold-mining country 
of which the Indians told Columbus, was supposed to 
be." 

"Why don't people get it out, then?" 

"Easier said than done, Billy. Gold is sometimes 
mixed up with rock, like fruit in a mince pie. It may' 
have to go through an ore-crushing machine to get rid 
of the worthless stone. It may be mixed with other 
metals or minerals so that it has to be melted and sepa- 
rated by methods that chemists work out. These under- 
takings need a great deal of capital, and unless the mines 
are rich enough to make it pay to spend the money, no 
one will put in machinery and pay labor. The mine 
may be in a place hard to reach, where all supplies and 
machines must be brought over such a trail as this from 
the coast. Most of the gold found first was 'free gold' 
in nuggets and pebbles or fine grains washed down by 
mountain streams. It takes years to wash out such 
gold as this, and after a time of course all there was in 
sight had been picked up. Then as men began to dig 
for gold they found more in the soft dirt along the streams, 
and more still in rocks that could be split and pried apart 
with the rude tools they had. Gold-mining nowadays 
is mainly carried on in big mines where machinery is 
used, and there is not enough here, so far as we know, 
to make that worth while. Even the gold from the 
graves of the Indians has been carried off." 



Mules and Mountain Trails 107 

"Gold from the graves!" exclaimed Billy, incredu- 
lous. 

"Didn't you hear how the old Indian told the reasons 
for burying their wealth with them? Gold ornaments, 
plates of gold, and other ornaments were buried in the 
graves of the Indians along this coast, and these mounds, 
called guacas, were opened by white men and the gold 
taken out." 

"Well," said Billy, after thinking the matter over, 
"I don't believe I'd ever want gold badly enough to 
steal it from a graveyard." 

" Some day there may be gold in these rivers in another 
form," said Mr. Carroll, as they started down the steep 
trail on the other side of the ridge. "There is an almost 
unlimited amount of unused water power here, either 
to use as water power or convert into electricity. One 
reason why the country has not been more quickly 
settled is that there are few large rivers, and so many 
rapids occur in the Central American rivers as a rule 
that boats cannot easily ascend them. In such a country 
transportation must be by boats plying along the coast 
or by mules traveling over such trails as this one. Look 
at the cross section of Central America in this little 
pocket-book that I have." 

"Great place for a scenic railway," was Billy's com- 
ment. "Talk about looping the loop, this is it." 

That evening, when they were all in the library where 
Senor Bastido had his books and maps, Billy asked to 
see the map showing altitudes in the various Central 
American republics. • *^j 

"I believe," he said, after studying it earnestly for 
some time, "that this country would be bigger than the 
United States if it was ironed out." 



108 A Central American Journey 

"But perhaps not so interesting as it is now," sug- 
gested his mother. 

"A Brazilian once said to me," remarked Mr. Carroll, 
"'Our greatest assets are our greatest liabilities.' He 
meant that everything that seems a serious disadvantage 
has some equally important advantage. He said that 
the wonderful inland plateaus which are found in so 
many of the Central and South American countries are 
among the finest lands on earth. They have remained 
undeveloped because they are hard to reach, and the 
very thing that makes them hard to reach, — - that 
there is this abrupt change in altitude, — gives them 
their extraordinary variety of climate and products. 
There are surprises waiting for us all over this unique 
region when the transportation problem is worked out, 
but it will take time." 

"Owing to our national politeness?" asked Senor 
Bastido, mischievously. 

"I might say yes," laughed Mr. Carroll, "considering 
how the railroad was built to Punta Arenas." 

"I should think a man who could build a railroad in 
Central America could build one anywhere," commented 
Billy, still occupied with the map. 

"How did they build that one, Daddy?" asked Eliza- 
beth, catching at the hint of a story. 

"When it was begun you would naturally expect the 
builders to start from the Pacific end of the line. In 
that way they could carry rails and other material and 
supplies by cars running over the line as it was completed 
section by section. But there was a carrying trade 
already established between Punta Arenas and San Jose, 
and this would have been interfered with by that way 
of managing. Therefore, not to hurt the feelings of 



Mules and Mountain Trails 109 

their neighbors, what did they do but begin at the eastern 
end and work down toward the coast, all materials 
being carried up over the mountains ! That is what 
might be called politeness at the expense of profit." 

"Perhaps they saved time in the end," said Mrs. Carroll. 
"You know that old proverb about being penny wise 
and pound foolish. If there is anything I try especially 
to avoid, it is a quarrel with the next-door neighbor." 



CHAPTER TEN 



Along the Tropical Coast 




It was hot in Punta 
Arenas. During their stay 
at the ranch the Carrolls 
had almost forgotten that 
they were in the tropics. 
But on reaching the little 
Pacific seaport they had 
no doubt about it. The 
small steamer which they 
were to take came crawl- 
ing up from Panama, and 
next morning the lighters 
came out to unload the 
freight. The Carrolls had 
no desire to stay in Punta 
Arenas, and were glad to 
take the first boat out to the steamer. They sat on the 
deck watching the unloading. 

It was a very curious sight. The men rowing the 
lighters stood up, facing in the direction they were going. 
Presently a large lighter, towed by a small rowboat with 
six oars, put out from the shore. The men rowed 
until the line was taut, then stopped with a jerk. Then 
the men on the lighter pulled on the line and drew the 
two boats close together, while the rowers held their 
boat as still as possible. Then it was all done over again. 
"This reminds me," said Mrs. Carroll, "of the frog 
in the well who crept up three inches and fell back three 
and three quarters. It seems as if the small boat were 

110 



On the way to Corinto, Nicaragua. 



Along the Tropical Coast 111 

being pulled toward the lighter instead of the lighter 
toward the small boat." 

"They are getting the answer set down in the book, all 
the same," her husband observed. " Results are the thing." 

Sure enough, the boat did in time cross the space 
between the steamer and the shore, and boxes and bales 
began to be dumped into the lighter from the hold of the 
steamer. 

"I should like to know why they call a" heavy boat 
like that a lighter?" said Billy, as he leaned over the 
rail watching the work. 

"Possibly because it lightens the load of the ship," said 
his father. "Many words that sailors use are very old 
English. They sometimes say 'light along,' meaning 
to move a thing by lifting and carrying it." 

"And people say 'light out' when they mean run 
away," added Lucia. "But that's slang, isn't it?" 

"Yes," answered Mrs. Carroll, smiling. When Lucia 
was learning English, Mrs. Carroll had cautioned the 
children to explain to her any slang phrases she might 
hear, so that she would know slang from good English. 
In return Lucia had taught them all Spanish, not as 
they might have learned it from a book, but as it is 
spoken among educated Spanish- Americans. She was 
going with them on their travels through Central America 
while her father went direct to Guatemala, and the 
children were surprised to find how fast they were learn- 
ing to understand, with Lucia's help, the Spanish they 
heard around them. 

"Where are we going next, Daddy?" Elizabeth asked, 
as she saw her father take out his pocket map. He had 
traced their route on it with his fountain pen, and the 
line looked rather like a snarl of string. 



112 A Central American Journey 

"We are on our way now to Corinto in Nicaragua," 
answered Mr. Carroll. "A railroad runs from that port 
to Managua, the capital. After visiting Managua we 
come back to Corinto and go by steamer to Amapala, 
the port of Honduras. We cross the bay in a motor 
boat, which takes about six hours, and get up at five 
o'clock next morning to go by automobile to Tegucigalpa, 
the capital. That will take all day. We come back 
over the same road to Amapala and take the steamer 
again to La Libertad in Salvador. From that port we 
go by train to San Salvador, the capital. Then we return 
to La Libertad to take the steamer to San Jose in Guate- 
mala and go by rail to Guatemala City." 

"It would break a snake's back to follow our trail," 
said Billy. 

"As my grandmother used to say, when you can't do 
as you want to, you have to do as you can," said Mr. 
Carroll, dryly. "If you are well prepared to do as you 
want to you'll very often find that you can, but in this 
case the shape of the country is too much for us." 

And when Billy came to study the nature of the land 
on the altitude map, he admitted that it was not very 
favorable to cross-country travel in anything like a 
straight line. 

Just before the steamer left Punta Arenas a party of 
their own countrymen came on board, and, as the Carrolls 
could not possibly help knowing from the loud talk 
that went on, the stout old gentleman who was the prin- 
cipal person in the group was named Follansbee. There 
were two children about the age of the Carrolls, named 
Imogene and Clifton B. The young men and the girls 
called one another by their given names, which proved 
to be respectively Roscoe, Jack, Paula, and Helen. 



Along the Tropical Coast 



113 



There were two older ladies, and a younger one who 
seemed to be the mother of the two children but who 
made no effort to keep them from scampering over the 
ship and doing exactly as they happened to choose. 

Two families of well-to-do Latin-Americans were on 
board also, and seemed to regard the Follansbee party 
as a kind of circus. They were too polite to show their 
amusement openly, but they had clearly never seen 
anything in the least like this before. 

The Carroll children were very much on their good 
behavior as they looked and listened. They had been 
talking in Spanish with their mother and Lucia for prac- 
tice, for they had agreed that they would do this for an 
hour at some time every day, not speaking a word of 
English. Presently Elizabeth heard one of the girls 
say: 




Pan American Union 

Unloading freight at a Honduras seaport. 



114 A Central American Journey 

"They don't look like natives, but I suppose they are, 
or they would talk English." 

Elizabeth, being nearest to the Follansbee group, was 
the only one who heard this, and she suddenly found 
herself growing rather warm. The way in which the girl 
said "natives" sounded as if she regarded them as inferior 
beings. She saw, all in a flash, how it must seem to a 
foreigner in the United States, to be regarded as a speci- 
men of queer outlandish animal. Just then Mr. Carroll 
came along. 

"Billy," he said in a low but clear voice, "I've just 
been watching the last of the freight coming on. Do 
you see that boiler ? It's a good illustration of the way 
some of our capitalists go after the trade here." 

There was a sudden silence in the Follansbee party, 
and the old gentleman looked up as if he were interested. 
Mr. Carroll, who had not noticed them, went on, handing 
his field-glass to Billy : 

"On these coast lines there may be a wharf and there 
may not. You see how the freight had to be landed 
here. There is a wharf at Corinto, but this lot of freight 
isn't going there. Suppose it had to land in a heavy 
sea with the ship lying in an open roadstead. See how 
low the boat lies in the water. They'd run the risk of 
the boiler smashing straight through if they undertook 
to land it in some of these coast towns in a small boat." 

Billy grinned as he handed back the glasses. On one 
of the packing cases was the name "Follansbee." 

"Father," he said a little later, as they sat down to 
play chess on the other side of the deck, "did you know 
that that freight belongs to somebody on this boat?" 

"No, son," his father answered, as they arranged the 
pieces on a pocket chessboard. "I didn't. All the 



Along the Tropical Coast 115 

better if he is within sight when it comes to grief. It will, 
somehow or other." 

"It's that man over there — Mr. Follansbee," said 
Billy, with' a grin. "You ought to have seen his face 
when he heard what you said !" 

Mr. Carroll gave his son one astonished look and 
laughed. "Well," he remarked, "I am ready to stand 
by it." 

That afternoon Mr. Follansbee and the two young 
men came over to Mr. Carroll and drifted into a conversa- 
tion. Billy, half asleep in the hot, dreamy tropical 
air, curled up in his mother's deck chair, listened with 
growing interest. 

"The captain tells me," said Mr. Follansbee, "that 
you are familiar with this coast. I'd like to ask you a 
question or two." 

"Anything I can tell you I will most gladly," said Mr. 
Carroll. 

"I came down here this year to see for myself what 
we might be able to do with Central American trade. 
What chance do you think there is ? " 

"You can do more with Central American trade in 
less time than with most other fields," said Mr. Carroll, 
"if you understand it. On the other hand, you can put 
more hard work on it with less effect than on anything 
else I know. This is a new field." 

"Well," said Mr. Follansbee, "I am in the agricultural 
machinery business mainly. We've done some foreign 
selling and I don't see any reason for not working off 
surplus stock here, near home. 

"I have a consignment on board this steamer, and I'd 
like to know what's wrong with it. My son down here 
gave me to understand that we ought not to use heavy 



116 A Central American Journey 

packing-boxes, but his letter came after this lot started. 
Agricultural machinery needs heavy cases. We packed 
this just as we've packed thousands of cases for moun- 
tain country before. I can see, of course, now I've 
watched them load their freight, that the big cases might 
be risky, but what are you going to use instead?" 

"Did your customer ask for strong wooden boxes?" 
inquired Mr. Carroll. 

"How about it, Roscoe? You attended to that 
order." 

"No," admitted the young man, a little sheepishly, 
"he didn't. He wanted waterproof canvas reenforced 
with half-inch boards and bound with wire. I sent 
you the order by telegraph and made it as short as I 
could." 

Evidently money spent in telegraphing was extrava- 
gance in the eyes of Mr. Follansbee. The other young 
man took up the story. 

"Besides that," he said, "the head of our shipping 
department said it would be safer to put the whole thing 
in a good box. I asked him about the canvas and board 
and wire plan and he said the men wouldn't know how 
to pack it that way." 

"When you pay duty," said Mr. Carroll, coolly, "you 
will pay according to weight, your boxes paying the same 
duty as your machinery." 

Mr. Follansbee shut his mouth grimly. 

"Then that means," he said after a pause, "that we 
shall have to pay that duty ; the customer won't. , But 
do you mean to say that freight of that kind will go done 
up in boards and canvas?" 

"It does," answered Mr. Carroll, "or the order would 
not have been given in that way. Probably your cus-. 



Along the Tropical Coast 117 

tomer knew where he could sell, or use, the boards and 
canvas. He may be in a region far from stores or mills, 
where these things are scarce. The waterproof cover 
was to protect it against rain. The wire keeps the con- 
tents from being tampered with on the way. Most 
freight going inland is carried sooner or later on mules. 
A mule will carry only a certain weight, and if your ma- 
chinery doesn't arrive in parcels that he can carry, the 
chances are that it will never get there, that's all." 

Mr. Follansbee took a block of cable forms from his 
pocket and began writing on one. Then he handed the 
slip to Mr. Carroll. "That all right?" he inquired. 

The message was addressed to the head of the shipping 
department in the Follansbee Agricultural Machinery 
factory. It read as follows : 

"Hold all goods intended for shipment Central America. 
Wait letter. E. H. F." 

Mr. Carroll nodded. "That will save you trouble," 
he said. 

"I know a carpenter," said Mr. Follansbee, "who has 
worked on jobs down here, and knows the country. He 
was sent me by a young fellow named Frost who said he 
could do anything short of building Noah's Ark. I'll 
set him to work in that shipping room." 

"Is anybody else sending goods the way you say they 
ought to be sent?" asked Roscoe. "In our line, I 
mean?" 

"I don't know about that especial line," said Mr. 
Carroll, "but the more you know about transportation 
and conditions here the less money you will lose. Busi- 
ness today is a great game, where every bit of special 
information counts. The Germans and the Japanese, 
living where wood is scarce and costly, will use burlap, 



118 A Central American Journey 




Indian cargadores or pack carriers. 



canvas, wire, slats, or whatever saves weight and cost. 
We Americans, having cheap wood and high-priced 
labor, have formed the habit of using heavy packing- 
cases. Moreover, our goods travel over railroads, where 
they get very rough handling. They must have strong 
cases to stand it. Now we are sending our products to 
markets where every ounce in weight cuts profits, and 
every breakage may mean the loss of a customer. 

"In some countries the packing of goods is a profession. 
With us it is not even a trade. It is an odd job. I 
believe we can do the job as well as any one if we set about 
it, and we are much nearer the Central American mar- 
ket. We may find that our wasted by-products will 
supply packing material. But it is not a matter to neglect, 
and we can't trust to luck when it comes to building up 
an export business." 



Along the Tropical Coast 119 

"Well, sir," said old Mr. Follansbee, "I never met a 
man yet that I couldn't learn something from, and 
there certainly is more to learn here than I supposed. 
Is there anything else you think of that is important in 
our line?" 

"One other point," said Mr. Carroll, quietly. "You 
spoke of unloading your surplus. If you will pardon 
the suggestion, that is not the view to take of this field. 
It has been too often taken. Salesmen from our factories 
have gone through these Central American countries 
when there was a time of over-production, getting orders 
and working up a trade, and then, when the customers 
wanted more goods, the factory would be too busy to 
fill the order. Sometimes the letter of the customer 
even remains unanswered. Let one of your men learn 
Spanish and make friends here, then let your home office 
give him proper support, and you will hold every cus- 
tomer year after year. If you haven't a man whose 
recommendations you can trust, don't send anybody. 
Exporters tell me that as a rule the best of the traveling 
salesmen are natives of the country. The two important 
points are to have your man here on the ground know 
the place and the people, and have your men in the home 
office careful to follow his instructions absolutely." 

"My representative here," said Mr. Follansbee, "is 
my son Joe. He seemed to be rather discouraged when 
I met him here, and had a good deal to say about the 
difficulties. But I begin to see that he was right about 
some things." 

"Evidently," said Mr. Carroll, after the old gentle- 
man and his nephews had gone, "our steamer talks with 
that young salesman made an impression. If he's like 
his father, however, he can learn." 



120 A Central American Journey 

"I hope the girls can," said Mrs. Carroll. "I tried to 
caution Mrs. Follansbee that girls cannot go about in 
these countries with the freedom they have at home, but 
she seemed to think that American girls could take care 
of themselves anywhere." 

"They may, and they may also be talked about every- 
where," remarked her husband, grimly. " Latin- Ameri- 
cans use the phrase 'American girl' sometimes in a very 
unpleasant way. In some places it means simply a bold, 
ill-mannered, conspicuous young woman." 

Elizabeth felt that she would "want to go through the 
floor if Daddy ever looked at her as he looked at those 
girls." Presently she said soberly, "You ought to have 
heard how Imogene answers her mother back!" 

"That's unfortunate too," said Mrs. Carroll. "The 
Spanish people have never lost their deference for age 
and dignity. They show it in all sorts of small ways. 
Do you know, children, that in a Spanish house the sofa 
is always the seat of dignity? You aren't supposed to 
sit on it unless you are invited, and if you are, it is a 
mark of special honor." 

"Lucia," said Elizabeth, suddenly, "was that why 
you never sat on the sofa when you first came to our 
house? We thought you didn't like it." 

"It took me a long time to feel used to seeing people 
sit on the couch without an invitation," said Lucia, 
laughing. "And after all, it's only a little thing." 

"The feeling that rules such customs is not a little 
matter," said Mr. Carroll. "In every country there is 
something that the people won't forgive. In these 
countries they don't forgive rudeness." 



CHAPTER ELEVEN 



The Ancient Land of Nicaragua 



The steamer anchored 
outside the harbor of Co- 
rinto about ten o'clock at 
night. The harbor is large, 
but its entrance is narrow. 
The ship channel is still 
narrower and cannot safely 
be attempted except by 
daylight. Before six o'clock 
in the morning the men 
were busily unloading 
freight — barbed wire, cot- 
ton waste, kerosene oil, 
and boxes and bales of 
other supplies. Old Mr. 
Follansbee said that it was 
worth getting up before 
daylight to see the way 
the various consignments were packed. 

"They must keep lots of chickens here," remarked 
Elizabeth, as a great cackling and squawking sounded 
from below. 

"There are a good many gamecocks," answered her 
father. "One of the favorite amusements in these 
towns is cock-fighting, and every Sunday the laborers 
gamble away their wages in this way. They don't 
lose a great deal in money, for they haven't much to 
lose, but many of them lose much more than they can 
afford. I suspect, however, that that noise we hear is 

121 




The papaya, a popular Central 
American fruit. 



122 A Central American Journey 

made by parrots, parrakeets, and macaws. Hundreds 
of them are shipped from this port." 

From the ship, Corinto looked like another Punta 
Arenas. The town is on an island five or six miles long, 
and a railroad bridge connects this island with the main- 
land. Coconut palms, beautiful and stately, give a 
tropical look to the buildings strung along the shore — 
warehouses, a hotel, shops, a church, and houses built 
in the usual Spanish style. 

"Mother," said Elizabeth presently, when they were 
in the train and once more climbing upward from the 
low coast town, "is Managua a very old city?" 

"Not very," answered her mother. "It is extremely 
modern in some ways. I remember how surprised I was 
at the excellent water supply and the electric light and 
telephones, for it happened to be the first Central Ameri- 
can city I had seen. It is on the shore of Lake Managua, 
and really a beautiful place, though it is not large — about 
the size of our home town, shouldn't you say, Robert?" 

"Not quite 50,000 inhabitants," answered Mr. Carroll, 
"according to this guidebook. In 1876 they had only 
7000 — all the rest has grown up since." 

Elizabeth looked decidedly disappointed. "I was 
wishing it was old," she explained. "I'd like to see an 
old Spanish city just as it used to be, with the old build- 
ings all there. If they were so well built that it needed 
dynamite to tear them down, I don't see why they couldn't 
let them stay and use them." 

"Do you think you would like to live in a house with 
no water supply except a fountain in the court, no light 
but candles, and no way to get about except by riding 
a mule or horse ? " her father asked with amusement. 

"I wouldn't care," Elizabeth persisted. "I'd make 



The Ancient Land of Nicaragua 123 

believe I was going on adventures — like looking for 
the Fountain of Youth or something." 

"You will hardly need to look for that for some time," 
laughed her mother. "But Betty dear, we are going 
to other places besides Managua. We go first to Leon." 

Elizabeth's eyes began to sparkle. "Was that where 
Ponce de Leon came from?" 

"No; it was the city that he and his friends founded 
in 1523. Nicaragua is almost a hundred years older than 
either New York or Boston." 

Elizabeth gave a happy sigh. "I'm so glad. I do like 
old-time things. Does it really look old, mother?" 

"That I can't tell you, Betty, for we didn't go there. 
I believe Lucia has never been there either, have you, 
Lucia ? " 

It turned out that none of the party had. Senor 
Bastido knew the region thoroughly, but he was not here 
to play guide, and they had to hunt out the strange, 
dramatic history from a newspaper clipping in Mr. 
Carroll's pocket-book. 

Before they had finished the reading they were thrilled 
by the sight of the actual volcano which figured in the 
history, the great cone-shaped mountain Momotombo. 
At the foot of this mountain the colony was founded and 
named after the explorer's province in Spain. Here 
the people lived in prosperity and peace until the bishop 
was killed by a reckless son of the governor of the colony. 
The priests told the people that some terrible punish- 
ment would follow this crime, and not long afterward 
the prophecy seemed to be fulfilled. One bright, beautiful 
morning the men and women went about their work as 
usual, but in the middle of the day they saw with terror 
that the skies were suddenly growing as dark as night. 



124 



A Central American Journey 




Pan American Union 



A street scene in Leon, Nicaragua. 

Within half an hour ashes were falling, and before the 
day was over an eruption from the volcano had destroyed 
a part of the city. Then the wind changed and blew 
the ashes out to sea, the darkness passed, the sun shone 
again, and the mountain was as quiet as before. 

There was no peace in the city, nevertheless, for the 
people could not be sure that another and more violent 
outbreak might not follow. Finally they all — men, 
women, and children — left the city in a great procession 
of many thousands, the governor and the bishop leading 
them, and traveled twenty miles to the site of the present 
city of Leon. 

Lucia remembered her father telling her about his 
visit to the ruins of the ancient city at the foot of Momo- 
tombo and to the very old Indian village of Subtiaba 
near the present Leon. 

"I don't see why they built their city so close to the 
volcano, father," said Billy. 



The Ancient Land of Nicaragua 125 

"Ponce de Leon may not have known it was a volcano 
when he explored the country, or he may have thought 
it was extinct," Mr. Carroll replied. "The soil around 
a volcano is usually very rich and good, and it also is 
likely to contain minerals useful in making gunpowder. 
That may have been a point to consider. Cortes once 
ran out of gunpowder, somewhere in Mexico, and sent 
his men up a volcano for the ingredients and made some 
then and there." 

Cameras came into use at once when they reached 
Leon and went forth to explore the wonderful old city. 
They had so many temptations to photograph buildings, 
street scenes, and members of their own party in attrac- 
tive settings, that Mr. Carroll had to go back to the 
hotel for more films. 

First they climbed to the roof of the cathedral, which 
is more than 150 years old and covers a whole block 
fronting on the plaza or public square in the middle of 
the town. It seemed to command a view of all Nicaragua. 
On one side the blue Pacific, on the other the volcanoes 
of the Marabios, and all about them, coffee plantations, 
fields, and wild forest, — the scene was not like anything 
that the Carrolls had ever beheld outside this ancient land. 

When at last they came down into the plaza and strolled 
about, seeing all that was to be seen, it was like a gorgeous 
pageant. The market alone was a fascinating sight. 
Almost every known fruit and vegetable was to be seen 
there, most of the produce brought in by barefooted, 
gayly clad Indians. There were piles of watermelons, 
cantaloupes, pineapples, oranges, bananas, pomegranates, 
beans, corn, potatoes, peppers, onions, and many other 
things unknown to the Northern market, and all for an 
absurdly small price. Sugar cane, cacao, and tobacco 



126 A Central American Journey 

are staple crops in Nicaragua ; vanilla grows freely ; 
and senna is a native herb. 

The Carroll children had never seen fresh pomegranates, 
and bought some from an Indian girl. 

"I advise you to eat your first pomegranate in strict 
privacy," said their mother. "It is rather a messy 
proceeding." 

"It's good, all the same," said Lucia, and they found 
that both statements were true. Billy said that if he 
were to raise the fruit he should get somebody to invent 
a seedless one. The red pulp is packed full of tiny seeds, 
from which it gets its name, meaning, "seed apple." 

At last they found a nook out of the way of the crowd 
and watched the people go to and fro, laughing, chattering, 
buying and selling, exchanging bits of gossip in Spanish 
or Indian dialect. Here an Indian girl passed, straight 
as a pine sapling, a jar of water on her head. There 
came two Spanish senoritas in white muslin, dainty 
slippers, and bright scarfs, the prettier of the two wearing 
about her neck a little gold chain and carrying a rosary. 
Many of the people they saw had just enough Indian 
blood to give the complexion a slight shading of reddish 
brown like the hue of some beautiful tropical fruit. 
Unmixed Spanish families tend to fair complexions and 
very tiny hands and feet. The beautiful eyes. and white 
teeth, abundant black hair, and slender, lightly moving 
figures of Nicaraguan girls add much to the witchery of 
such an old town as this. 

"Has your old Spanish town been all that you expected, 
Betty ? " asked Mrs. Carroll, when at last they had gone 
back to the hotel. Elizabeth's glowing eyes and en- 
thusiastic "Oh, yes!" expressed the feeling of the whole 
party. They were in love with Leon. 



The Ancient Land of Nicaragua 127 




l An Indian girl passed, straight as a pine sapling." 



128 A Central American Journey 

" I wouldn't mind if they'd built the canal here instead 
of at Panama," was Billy's comment. 

"How could they?" asked Elizabeth. "It's ever so 
much wider than the Isthmus." 

"Some of the arguments for it were not engineering 
arguments," answered Mr. Carroll, beginning to serve 
the chicken with rice and peppers, which they were 
having for dinner. "I remember that there was a great 
deal of talk about the Nicaraguan route in 1892. Climate 
was one point in its favor. Until our sanitary engineers 
solved the problem, the unhealthfulness of the Panama 
region was a great difficulty. 

"Then there are the two great lakes of Nicaragua 
and Managua, which would have been of some assistance. 
And finally there were wealthy men of Central America 
who were willing to help such an enterprise. By the 
treaty between Nicaragua and the United States our 
Government controls the right to build a canal by this 
route, if we ever want to do it." 

"I wish we could see people making sugar, Daddy," 
suggested Elizabeth, presently. 

"Not much is made here," said Mr. Carroll. "The 
cane is used mainly for aguardiente." 

"What's that?" 

"Use your Spanish. Translate." 

" Agua-ardiente — oh, I see. Burning water — fire- 
water." 

"It is an inferior kind of rum. All sorts of juices are 
used to make liquors of one sort or another. In the 
old times rum was one of the chief exports of the West 
Indies or any other place where there* were sugar planta- 
tions." 

The next day they went to the original city of Leon 



The Ancient Land of Nicaragua 129 

and found that the vanished people seemed very real. 
Their descendants, Spanish and Indian, were still living 
in this very region, and in parts Nicaragua is almost 
as wild as when the conquistadores came. 

"Who else came here besides Columbus and Ponce de 
Leon?" asked Billy, on the way home. "Who dis- 
covered Nicaragua ? " 

"It's a little hard to say," answered Mr. Carroll. 
"Columbus of course was first to see the coast, but one 
of the early explorers hereabouts was a rather interesting 
adventurer named Gil Gonzalez Davila. He came to 
the New World in search of a way to the Moluccas, with 
an order from the King of Spain for some ships which 
Balboa had built: The governor objected to this, out 
of jealousy, and finally gave him four miserable ones 
which gave out before he had gone far. He and his men 
had to beach three of them, send the fourth for help, 




A street vender selling the jocote. 



130 A Central American Journey 

and proceed on foot by land. In one place they were 
entertained by a chief in his house, and the rains were 
so severe that during the fortnight they spent there the 
posts of the house sank into the soft earth. The Spaniards 
cut their way through the roof and lived in the tree-tops. 

"Finally they came to a gulf on the coast of what is 
now Costa Rica ; and here a friendly chief, Nicoya, told 
them of a great chief inland named Nicaragua. They 
went to look for him and found him fifty leagues to the 
north. Nicaragua received them in a friendly way and 
began to ask them questions. He asked them if they 
came from heaven, and they said they did. He asked 
them how they came, — directly down like the flight 
of an arrow, or riding a cloud or in a circuit like a bent 
bow. I don't know what they said to that. Among 
other questions he asked how large the stars were and 
who held them in place and moved them about ; where 
did the soul go when it left the body ; did the King of 
Spain ever die ; and why did the Spaniards love gold. 

"Gil Gonzalez was the first to come into the territory 
about Lake Nicaragua. He rode his horse into the lake, 
on the border of which the chief's capital was, and found 
the water to be fresh. He called it Mar Dulce, — the 
fresh-water sea. He came back to Panama in June, 
1523, with 110,000 pesos of gold, and he is one of the early 
Spaniards who doesn't appear, to have abused the Indians 
at all." 

"I'm glad he didn't," said Elizabeth, contentedly. 

"Are there gold mines here now?" asked Billy. 

"Nearly five hundred, and mining experts say the 
country has hardly been scratched. A number of those 
near the west coast are in the hands of English capitalists. 
Gold mining has gone on from the time of discovery to 



The Ancient Land of Nicaragua 131 

the present day. But most of the trade of Nicaragua 
is with the United States. Her cattle country is develop- 
ing — do you remember all that barbed wire we saw 
landing ? The west coast has so little timber that they 
use wire here as they do in our Western states. They 
use a good many other things that we turn out by ma- 
chinery in large quantities, such as locks and nails and 
screws. That is where our gold mine is, my son, so far 
as Nicaragua is concerned, — not in digging gold from the 
ground but in making the most of the country in every 
way. If they get the wealth out of their country and 
pay us for what they want, it means wealth for us, — do 
you see ? " 

Mr. Carroll laughed as he turned a leaf in his note- 
book. "I talked with a firm that trades more or less 
with Nicaragua, and saw their record of sales. The 
biggest sales for the last week were in barbed wire, nails, 
soda straws, and bird cages. You see, all those things 
are turned out by large organized forces of workmen 
in our factories. In Nicaragua the labor is largely hand 
labor and not organized. They have a school for train- 
ing telephone and telegraph operators, they make some 
furniture, boots and shoes, candles, cigars, and soap, 
but they send to us for nails and soda straws ! Like 
most Central American countries it's a land of surprises. 
And I tell you, son, there's nothing more unexpected or 
full of curious meanings than an exporter's card catalog, 
if you can only see it. If boys who work in such places 
had the imagination to see where their goods go, why 
the directions are as they are, what need is met by a bolt 
of drilling for Indians' overalls, they'd enjoy their work 
a great deal more than they do." 




"They were soon in a lovely hilly country." 



CHAPTER TWELVE 
Four Hundred Years of Progress 

"Managua has changed almost as much as one of 
our 'boom towns' in the last few years," observed Mrs. 
Carroll. "How many improvements they have made 
since we were here !" 

The Nicaraguan capital was in fact very up-to-date in 
some respects. The canned fruits and vegetables, ging- 
hams and prints, enamel ware and toilet preparations 
which appeared in the shop windows were a curious 
contrast to the Spanish-looking houses and Indian work- 
ing-people. 

"There is one difference between this and one of our 
Western towns, though," said Mr. Carroll, after examin- 
ing one of these displays rather closely. "The things 
they sell which are not made in Nicaragua — and most 

132 



Four Hundred Years of Progress 133 

of these goods are not — come from all over the world. 
I had a talk with the manager of this dry-goods store 
last year. He told me that jute bags for coffee and sugar 
came from Scotland and India, chemicals and dyes from 
France, rice from Siam and China, and bleached cotton 
goods, drilling, print, and gingham from England. But 
I see he has a lot of American dress goods this year." 

"Don't they get anything else from the United States ?" 
asked Billy, concerned for the honor of his country. 

"Oh, yes. Most of their imported foodstuffs come 
from us, and they also get cement, canned butter, milk, 
explosives, boots and shoes, and paper, and machinery for 
sugar and mining industries. Curious mixture, isn't it ? " 

"I should like to know why Nicaragua is importing 
canned butter and milk, with all this cattle country," 
Mrs. Carroll remarked. "And do you mean to say they 
can't raise their own vegetables and meat, with such a 
climate as this?" 

"They can, and do," answered her husband. "But 
there is a large section of Nicaragua that you haven't 
seen — forest and ranch and mining country not yet 
cultivated by farmers. If you were obliged to keep 
house there for a lot of hungry men who were used to a 
varied diet, you might be glad to buy canned food. 
Moreover, in many cattle districts in Spanish America 
the cattle are raised simply for beef, tallow, hides, and 
horn, and no attempt is made to do anything with the 
milk. The vaqueros or cowboys won't milk cows as a 
rule. That is true on some of our own ranches. Hence 
you find the curious spectacle of communities making 
a living off herds of cattle and eating canned butter 
and condensed milk, or doing without dairy products 
altogether." 



134 A Central American Journey 

"Doing without butter!" exclaimed Elizabeth. 

"Yes, my daughter, and doing very well without it. 
To at least half the world butter is an unknown luxury 
so far as the poorer people are concerned. Olive oil, 
fats, and oily nuts take its place. I don't suppose the 
Spanish settlers of 'this country or their Indian servants 
ever thought of serving butter as we do, to eat on bread. 
,You will find, when you come to live in a country like 
France or Italy, where they serve vegetables cooked in 
oil and meat stews rich in fat, that the fresh bread they 
give you is very good just as it is. That's the usefulness 
of traveling. You learn new ways of living.''' 

Elizabeth looked rather incredulous, but she found 
in course of time that her father was right. Mrs. Carroll 
knew how to cook scientifically, and she already had bills 
of fare made out in which butter played a very small part 
indeed. 

"Mother," she said a little later, as they were making 
ready for a drive into the country, "shall we have to eat 
dry bread while we live here?" 

Her mother laughed. "Are you still worrying over 
that, Betty? Why, what do you think butter is?" 

"It's made of cream," said Elizabeth, doubtfully. 

"And cream is the oil or fat from milk. When we 
make butter we get rid of all the water in the cream and 
have a cake of pure fat or grease which does not spoil 
as milk does, or freeze. Nature doesn't care what sort 
of oil we use, but in order to be healthy we must have 
some sort, and not too much. Don't you remember 
how good the butterless rolls and chocolate were at that 
little French place where we had luncheon ? " 

"Where's the oil in that?" queried Billy. 

"Chocolate or cacao is rich in vegetable oil, just as 



Four Hundred Years of Progress 135 

olives and nuts are. Spanish cooks use all of these. 
In a hot climate it's easier to use ripe olives than to 
care for a dairy. Chocolate is even better, for it keeps 
in any climate." 

"It's funny, but I never thought where chocolate 
comes from," remarked Billy. "I don't know whether 
it grows on a tree or a plant or a vine." 

"Maybe you dig it up, like peanuts," suggested Eliza- 
beth. "No, — don't you remember the Indians had 
cacao beans for trading with Columbus? It's a bean." 

"You will have a chance to see," commented her mother, 
"for father says we are going to a cacao plantation. It 
must be time we were starting." 

And just then Lucia entered with the information 
that the horses were ready and Mr. Carroll wished them 
to hurry. 

It was a beautiful breezy day, just cool enough and 
not too cool, and they were soon in a lovely hilly country 
where trees, shrubs, pasture lands, and river valleys 
with mountains in the background made the ride one 
of the most unexpected fascinations. The landscape 
seemed in many ways as wild as the Rocky Mountains, 
and yet they passed villages which looked very old. 

"Nicaragua has the most curious mixture of civiliza- 
tions, I think, of any country I was ever in," said Mrs. 
Carroll. "I suppose when Gil Gonzalez visited his 
Indian chief by the lake over yonder, the place didn't 
look very different from the way it looks now." 

"And cacao was one of the first things the Spaniards 
took to Europe, four hundred years ago, when it was 
growing on this very plantation," said Mr. Carroll, 
thoughtfully. "More than that, we may see the descend- 
ants of Nicaragua's tribe working among the other Indians 



136 A Central American Journey 

and Spaniards under a French superintendent. Most 
of the product of this plantation goes to a chocolate 
factory in France. That was the country which invented 
chocolate creams, Betty." 

"It did!" said Elizabeth. "And the Indians in Nic- 
aragua make the chocolate 1" 

"In these days," said her father, "there's a great deal 
of geography to be learned from our dinner tables." 

A few minutes later they turned toward a group of 
buildings in the middle of a large tract of land covered 
with low woods and shrubs. The children saw nothing 
which looked like beans, either on trees or vines. The 
trees were of two kinds, one tall, branching high, and 
standing about thirty-five feet apart, the other about 
twenty feet high at most. No grass or undergrowth was 
allowed under them, and here and there men were at work 
with machetes cutting and pruning, or with very primitive- 
looking hoes. 

The manager, M. Durand, was very courteous and spoke 
English perfectly, and was glad to show them all there 
was to see. The first thing that they saw was a basket 
of curious ribbed pods of a reddish color, not like anything 
that grows in northern countries. M. Durand told them 
that this was the fruit of the cacao. 

"What do they mean by the cacao bean?" asked 
Billy, rather bewildered. M. Durand split one of the 
pods and showed them dozens of bean-shaped kernels 
within. 

"When the bean is hulled, roasted, and ground," he 
explained, "we have chocolate. When the seeds are 
ground without being shelled, we have the cocoa you 
drink at breakfast. Sometimes the hulls, ground sepa- 
rately, are sold under the name of shells, and made into 



Four Hundred Years of Progress 137 




The cacao bean before it is treated to make chocolate or 
the ordinary cocoa. 

a drink. We flavor the chocolate with a little vanilla 
and sometimes sweeten it." 

"What does it grow on?" asked Billy, as they went 
out into the plantations. " There are two kinds of trees." 

"Cacao trees must be shaded during the first three 



138 A Central American Journey 

years or they will not grow well, perhaps not at all," 
said M. Durand. "Some banana planters use their 
old plantations for cacao on this account. The banana 
makes an ideal shade for the first two years. But we 
do not use it here, partly because we are too high among 
the hills for bananas to grow well, and partly because 
the banana is apt to interfere with the young cacao tree 
in its third year. These trees, the juaquiniquil, branch 
so high that there is plenty of space between their branches 
and the top of the cacao, and they are quick growing. 
The important point in shade trees for cacao is to have 
the shade just thick enough, and if it is too thick we prune 
it. There are two other excellent qualities in this tree 
which you may not be able to guess." 

The Carrolls looked the tree over from top to bottom, 
but this time even Lucia was nonplussed, although she 
had seen cacao plantations before. 

"You will see," said M. Durand, with a little smile at 
their mystified looks, "that we are careful to keep the 
ground clear of grass and weeds. Even when the grass 
does not grow near the roots of the young tree it prevents 
the free circulation of air. A cacao tree is a very delicate 
child for the first year or year and a half of its life. When 
it is three months old we mulch it — cover the ground 
about the roots with leaves — to enrich the soil later and 
also to keep the grass and weeds from coming up. The 
leaves of these shade trees are constantly falling, and 
they form a natural mulch that is good for the ground. 
That is one way in which they are our good servants. 

"Perhaps you do not know that some plants and trees 
have the habit of gathering nitrogen from the air and 
returning it to the soil. The juaquiniquil does this, 
and the nitrogen it collects on its roots helps to feed the 



Four Hundred Years of Progress 139 

young cacao. Our soil here is rich river soil, with just 
enough clay to make it a little heavier. But the young 
cacao is all the better for this extra fertilizing, and the 
shade tree does it with no instructions and no wages." 

"Intelligent tree!" commented Mr. Carroll. "I wish 
all farming could be done by such laborers. But you 
must have to take care of the plantations in other ways ? " 

"Oh, indeed, there is much to do. After a year or a 
year and a half of growth the young tree starts to branch, 
and must be pruned by cutting off the top of the main 
shoot. After it has grown several branches we cut off 
all but a few — usually three to five. In that way, you 
see, all the nourishment the tree gets out of the soil goes 
into the fruit of those few remaining shoots. We use 
sharp knives and immediately seal the cut with coal 
tar. Then for the next two years, every time the sec- 
tion is cleaned, the water suckers or gormandizers have 
to be pruned away. The tree mustn't be allowed to 
waste its vitality on those ; it must give all its life to 
the seeds." 

> "It seems to me," remarked Mrs. Carroll, "that a 
cacao plantation like this is a work of art." 

"All farms should be," said the Frenchman, quietly. 

"Do you plant the trees in boxes?" inquired Mr. 
Carroll. "I see you have nurseries over there." 

"Sometimes we plant at stake, — that is, in the field 
where the tree is to stand," said M. Durand, leading 
the way to the nurseries. "Most often we plant in 
boxes. Of course we use the finest seeds for planting. 
We leave them for at least a day before planting in a 
mixture of water and ashes, ten pounds to thirty gallons. 
The ashes take off the pulp that sticks to the seeds, and 
make them less liable to attacks by insects. The tap 



140 A Central American Journey 

root is as long as the plant is high while it is in the nursery, 
and when it is as tall as the depth of the box we trans- 
plant it. In the meantime we have to watch our baby 
plants like real babies. You wouldn't believe how many 
enemies they have — insects, rats, lizards. The cacao 
planter must be, as you say, always on the job." 

M. Durand smiled and sighed, but he was plainly very 
proud of his well-cared-for plantation. 

"How long does it take for a tree to begin to bear? 
These don't look very old," commented Mr. Carroll. 

"In three years the harvest begins, and increases up to 
eight years," said the planter. "I have seen trees over 
twenty-five years old in full bearing. It took us about 
five years to bring our new plantations to bearing. We 
had to cut down the woodlands and prepare the land, 
build fermenting and drying sheds, and collect our work- 
ing force. Now we are getting from a thousand to fifteen 
hundred pounds per hectare each year." 

"How much is a hectare?" asked Billy. 

"About two and a half acres," said his father. "And 
the export value of cacao beans is about fifteen cents a 
pound." 

The Frenchman gave a shrug and a wave of the hand. 
"Oh, it is a good plantation. But one must be on the 
job. Here we have to plant windbreaks on account of 
the strong mountain winds. Otherwise it is very good 
land." 

They saw the beans drying and fermenting and packed 
for export, and finally went back to Managua feeling 
that chocolate would be more interesting to them all 
the rest of their lives. 

"In France," said Mr. Carroll, "the cacao will be 
ground and flavored and made into chocolate in the 



Four Hundred Years of Progress 141 



factory. There is another use for it which M. Durand 
didn't mention, — cocoa butter. Those nuts are forty 
per cent oil, and the oil can be squeezed out and sold 
separately. The dry powder that is left is made into 
cocoa." 

"And I always thought cocoa was made of coconuts," 
reflected Elizabeth. Everybody smiled. 

"It was a natural supposition," said her father. "But 
cacao gets its name from a native Indian word, cacautal, 
meaning this very tree. 'Chocolate' is as near as the 
early travelers could come to it. Cocoa has nothing to 
do with the coconut tree at all. These are chocolate 
trees." 

"I have found out something today," said Mrs. Carroll, 
"that I have wondered about ever since I was a little 
girl. Betty, you know that curious old piece of embroid- 
ery Great-grandmother did, of a basket of tropical fruits 
and flowers? I knew the peach and pear, of course, 
and the orange and grape, and somebody told me that 
one of the other fruits was a pomegranate, but nobody 
knew what the curious orange-colored, cone-shaped one 
in the middle was. We concluded it must be a fruit 
that the artist had made up out of his own head. But 
it was the fruit of the cacao." 

"Our ancestors," remarked ]\Ir. Carroll, "usually 
knew where the food they ate came from, which is more 
than most of us do. Cacao and pomegranate fruit 
must have been quite familiar to the artists of colonial 
times." 

"That cacao plantation had four hundred years of 
history tucked away in it," said Mrs. Carroll. "Nic- 
aragua and his Indians giving Gil Gonzalez cacao beans 
to carry back to Spain ; the people of Granada and Leon 



142 A Central American Journey 

cultivating their cacao with Indian slaves ; then chocolate 
becoming fashionable in France and Spain and Italy 
and Austria, where you have it with a roll for breakfast ; 
and finally chocolate candies making it profitable for 
this Frenchman to come to Nicaragua and use all his 
scientific training to make a chocolate tree bear the biggest 
and finest fruit it possibly can. What a country it is 
where even a common tree has a story like that behind 
it!" 

"Most trees have," said Mr. Carroll, "if you know the 
story." 



CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
The Wonders of a Wilderness 



"What do you sup- 
pose Honduras will be 
like?" Elizabeth 
queried, as the little 
coastwise steamer 
puffed its way out of 
the harbor of Corinto. 
" Costa Rica wasn't like 
Panama, and Nicaragua 
wasn't like either of 
them." 

Billy shook his head. 
"All I know is," he said, 
"there's an automobile 
road in it long enough 
for an all-day trip." 

"It's a big country," 
said Elizabeth, study- 
ing the map, " and there 
don't seem to be many 
towns. Father said once it was a country of the 
future. I wonder if he meant it wasn't much settled 

yet?" 

• Mr. Carroll strolled that way a moment later, and Eliza- 
beth put her question to him. 

"I meant, Betty," he answered, as he sat down beside 
her, "that it is a country with great possibilities that 
will undoubtedly be realized some day, but probably 
not very soon. It is a very rich country in many ways. 

143 




"It was a nugget of pure gold." 



144 A Central American Journey 

There are immense forests of valuable woods, great 
tracts of good cattle country, land good for raising bananas 
and other fruits, and the indications are that there are 
mines of considerable value. But the people of the 
country are mostly poor, and the conditions are such 
that it would take a great deal of capital to make a liv- 
ing there. That is, things would have to be done on a 
big scale or not at all. Such a country is not settled a 
little at a time by settlers working with their hands. It 
must be opened up by men with money enough to spend 
all they will have to spend for machinery, labor, trans- 
portation, and making connections with the market. 
As things are, the greater part of it is a wonderful, almost 
untraveled wilderness." 

"Dangerous?" asked Billy. 

"More or less. I have been only to Tegucigalpa." 

"Father went there before the road was made," said 
Lucia. "He shot a puma on the way." 

Billy rather wished that the road had not been made 
at all. A country in which one could shoot pumas 
sounded enticing. 

Honduras looked like a wilderness when they caught 
their first glimpse of it, coming into Amapala. The 
great dark wooded height looming up behind the harbor 
suggested all sorts of wild animals. 

On the way from the boat some one came up with 
a quick, firm step and called out cheerily, "Hey there! 
Wait a minute, Bob Carroll, — where did you drop down 
from?" 

"Jim Hobart! where have you been all this time? 
When we had our class dinner everybody wondered if 
you were dead, lost, or gone to the wars," said Mr. Carroll, 
with a hearty grip of the other man's hand. The stranger 



The Wonders of a Wilderness 



145 



was tall and lean, brown as an Indian, with clothes that 
showed hard service. Mrs. Carroll welcomed her hus- 
band's old friend cordially, and the children, who had 
heard of him as a sort of Sindbad the Sailor, felt that 
this was the right sort of traveling companion for a place 
like Honduras. 

Mr. Hobart proved to be on his way to Tegucigalpa, 
from which he intended to make expeditions into the 
forests. He had already been through the forests of 
Nicaragua and had nearly finished the tour he was mak- 
ing in the interests of a lumber company. He and his 
belongings filled the remaining space in the automobile 
next morning, and as this was not his first visit to Teguci- 
galpa the Carroll party saw a great many things on the 
road which otherwise might have escaped their notice. 

"When I came here before," said Mr. Carroll, "I came 
from Puerto Cortes on mule-back, and it took a week." 

"The next time," said Mr. Hobart, "you may do it 




Pan American Union 



The wharf and the custom house at Amapala, Honduras. 



146 A Central American Journey 

in a day and a half. They are working on that route 
by rail and automobile to Lake Yojoa, across the lake 
by steamer, and by rail to the capital." 

"If they do that, it will open up the country." 

"That's one reason why I am here. It may be easier 
to get lumber to market by and by than it has been. Do 
you know, Bob, the pine trees up here in the interior 
are so full of turpentine and resin that when they are 
first cut down they won't float! There's Peruvian bal- 
sam here, too, and mahogany, of course ; rubber, man- 
grove, and a good many different kinds of dye woods. 
There's no real reason why all the trade should go through 
the port of Amapala as it does." 

"Except that, as I was saying to the children yesterday, 
Honduras is a country where things must be done on a 
big scale or not at all." 

"Well, the company I'm here for is prepared to do 
them on a big scale ; the bigger the better. And if I 
find what I expect to in prowling about their mahogany 
concessions, they will think Honduras is the happy 
hunting ground of the future." 

When the party halted for luncheon, Mr. Hobart 
led them into the forest to a place he knew, where orchids 
such as none of them had seen blossomed on the trees. 
They had already seen roses, hibiscus, bougainvillea, 
and passion flowers growing in abundance. Some dis- 
tance away there was a little stream, and suddenly Mr. 
Hobart pointed toward it. Something that looked like 
a dead tree trunk was moving along down the hill, and 
as they watched, it crept up around a hillock, lifted a 
long, wicked-looking snout, and then went sedately on 
until it was out of sight. It was a large alligator. 

"That's rather unusual in this part of the country," 



The Wonders of a Wilderness 147 

said Mr. Hobart. "Nothing to worry about, however. 
The really dangerous wild beast of Honduras is the little 
mosquito that carries malaria." 

Tegucigalpa proved to be a picturesque though not 
an old town, with a governor's house that looked like 
a castle. Mr. Hobart came in one day with the suggestion 
that they should all go with him into a mahogany con- 
cession and see the trees growing. After rather a long 
journey through the forest they came to a ranch house 
where an old cattle owner, an American, lived alone 
except for his Indian servants and his pets. He had a 
parrot, some pigeons, a favorite horse, and a huge puma 
which he called his watch-dog. 

"Yes," he said, "I captured Nelly here when she was 
a cub — hauled her out of a hole in the rocks after I'd 
shot her mother. I've had some rough callers at times, 
but they're all quite respectful after they get a good look 
at Nelly." 

"Did you ever have a puma for a pet, Mr. Hobart?" 
asked Billy, when they were in the saddle once more. 
The explorer laughed and shook his head. 

" Not an experiment I should care to try. Pumas are 
sneaky brutes. They generally attack at night. Dur- 
ing the day they trail any footsteps they find, keeping 
carefully out of sight. In the evening you swing your 
hammock between the trees, eat your supper of what- 
ever you can get, and go to sleep. The puma creeps up 
till it is within pouncing distance, and lands on top of 
you. The servants hear the racket and come running 
up with machetes-, and that is the end of the puma. 
The uncomfortable point is that it may be the end of you 
before the servants get there. The safe plan in a puma 
country is to have somebody on watch at night — and 



148 A Central American Journey 

make sure that it is a person who stays awake every 
minute. 

"Jaguars do not often attack a man unless they are 
frightened or injured. A ranchman knows when the 
jaguars are getting hungry, because his cattle begin to 
disappear. Then he sends for a native hunter to attend 
to the jaguar. The hunter takes a long, sharp spear, 
and his servant a machete. When the hunter finds 
the jaguar, he attacks it and it springs at him. Just as 
it makes the leap he thrusts out his spear and if nothing 
goes amiss with the plan the jaguar lands on it and is 
instantly killed. If the jaguar happens to hold his paws 
together, the spear may not pierce the heart. Then the 
servant comes to the rescue with the machete, and be- 
tween the two the jaguar usually is killed." 

Presently Mr. Hobart halted his horse beside a tall 
tree unlike any other they had seen, with leaves rather 
like an ash. The foliage was unlike the other trees in 
color, having a tinge of yellowish red. 

"Get out your cameras," he said; "this is mahogany. 
It's the only one in this part of the forest. They don't 
grow in groves. If you find two to an acre, you're in 
luck. My firm told me that some years ago they secured 
forty square miles of Honduras forest on which they had 
the right to cut mahogany, and they found just eighty 
trees on the whole tract. That's one thing that makes 
the wood so costly." 

"How do they ever locate the trees?" asked Mrs. 
Carroll. 

"You see the color of the foliage? A man who knows 
the lay of the land goes with the wood cutters and climbs 
the tallest tree he can find. If he sees a mahogany tree 
anywhere, he notes the location and leads the wood 



The Wonders of a Wilderness 149 

cutters to it. Usually they have to hack a road as they 
go. This isn't the season for cutting — they do that 
in the rainy season. And they always cut the tree in 
the wane of the moon. They will tell you that at that 
time the tree is freer from sap, and the wood is sounder 
and of better color. They work at night because it's 
cooler. Then they have to leave it where it is until 
the dry season. When the ground is dry and hard, they 
can come in with oxen and haul it to some stream and 
float it on a raft to the coast. The quicker it is put on 
board ship the better, for once it is cut down the teredo 
is apt to get into it and bore holes. It's a slow grower 
and they've been cutting mahogany here ever since the 
sixteenth century. Yet I've seen a mahogany tree in 
Honduras forests that five men joining hands couldn't 
circle. The variety here is what is called wide-grained 
mahogany; sometimes it's called baywood. The furni- 
ture makers have machinery that can saw a board into 
200 sheets of veneer. You can see what a tree like this 
one would be worth in such a business." 

"And you say explorers have known of these forests 
from the first?" queried Mrs. Carroll, as they rode back 
toward Tegucigalpa. 

"Practically.* The wood is so hard that ordinary 
tools won't work it, and that probably saved the trees 
from being destroyed altogether. I don't know just when 
the wood came into fashion." 

"If you had been brought up in an old town full of sea 
captains, you would know," laughed Mr. Carroll. "It 
was used in the fittings of sailing ships first. One of 
Raleigh's ship's carpenters found it out. Up to 1850 
it was still used by old shipbuilders. It's a great wood 
for desks and cabinets, because it is so close and hard 



150 A Central American Journey 




A little native girl eating aguacate and tortillas. This is a 
very common complete meal in Central America. 



and won't warp or shrink. Some of the solid mahogany 
doors and bureaus in old sea captains' houses would make 
a whole houseful of veneered furniture today." 



The Wonders of a Wilderness 151 

" I think Honduras is a kind of Arabian Nights coun- 
try," said Elizabeth, gravely, about a week later. 

"Why?" asked Lucia. 

"It's all so different from any other place we've been. 
You don't know what you're going to see next, but you 
know it's something you never would think of." 

Among the curious things which they had seen, or 
been shown by Mr. Hobart or their father, Billy and 
Elizabeth counted these: 

In Honduras one could live entirely on food that grows 
upon the trees without cultivation. Milk is found in a 
nut. Flour is made from manioc roots. Orchids cost 
nothing, while gasoline is seventy-five cents a gallon. 
Wheat and corn fields are seen in the tablelands, oranges, 
lemons, coconuts, bananas, cotton, and coffee grow in 
various parts of the country, according to the climate. 
Among the other products are sarsaparilla, ipecac, castor 
beans, pimento, capsicum, camphor, vanilla, gums, resins, 
and dyewoods. All these things — especially those 
which grow wild — bring high prices in other countries, 
and some of them are rare. And yet Honduras is poor. 

One evening, as they were all sitting together making 
plans for the following day, Mr. Hobart was told that 
some one wished to see him. He came back a few minutes 
later, followed by an old Honduran. 

"Juan doesn't speak any English," he said, "but I 
wanted you to see the man who discovered a gold mine 
up here in the mountains, years ago, just by luck and 
observation. I doubt if you can make much of his dia- 
lect, but he's going to tell how it happened, and I'll 
translate." 

The old man began his story, and as the explorer 
translated it, it ran as follows : 



\5°Z A Central American Journey 



"In some of the deep valleys among the mountains, 
as the senor well knows, the sun shines only for a little 
while at noon. One hot day I had been hunting in the 
San Juancito mountains, and when I came to such a 
valley I drank of the little stream at the bottom and 
followed it up the canon to avoid the heat of the sun. 

"As the sun crept farther and farther down the cliffs 
I saw that it shone in spots, which was very strange to 
me. Here and there I saw a gleam of bright sunlight 
while the rocks around were still in shadow. I climbed 
to the bank on which one of these spots of sunlight lay, 
and when I touched it, it fell into my hand. It was a 
nugget of pure gold. 

"I had passed through the canon many times before 
and seen no gold, but there had been a flood which made 
the channel deeper and brought down this gold. The 
seiior knows that when I told him of the gold that I had 
found he brought his countrymen to see it, and that 
there is now a great mine in that valley. Senor. Pierce 
has sent to ask the senor if he will not visit the mine with 
his friends before he leaves this place." 

"Juan was a young fellow not much older than Billy 
here, when he found that gold," went on Mr. Hobart. 
"I was on my first expedition in Honduras, and his 
father had been my guide through that part of the 
forest. They were poor as crows, and when Juan made 
his find they didn't exactly know what to do about it. 
If they tried to work the mine themselves the news 
would get out, and they might be robbed, and if they 
let foreigners hear of it the whole valley might be taken ' 
away from them. Of course they could work it only 
with the gold-pan, as the early Californians did. To do 
that, the miner fills a shallow pan with gravel and sand 



The Wonders of a Wilderness 153 

and water from the stream and twirls it around with a 
peculiar motion that throws the water and gravel out 
and leaves a dark, heavy soil with whatever gold there 
is, at the bottom. Gold, you know, is heavy. But 
in that kind of mining you only scratch the surface and 
all the gold in sight may be cleaned up in a year or two. 

"Finally Juan persuaded his father to let him tell me 
about it as a secret. I prospected around there for a 
month or two. I was sure from what I found that this 
gold came from far up in the hills, but I found indications 
of silver. To make a long story short I secured their 
permission to take up the matter in New York with people 
I knew to be honest, and they came down here and began 
mining silver. Juan and his family got their share of 
,the good luck, and own a very nice cattle ranch now. 
Pierce, the mine superintendent, finding that Juan was 
riding in to see me, sent word that he'd be glad to see 
you and show you the mine. Would you like to go?" 

Of course there was a delighted chorus of acceptance. 

"I'm sorry not to go with you," said Mr. Hobart, 
"but I have to stay and meet some men here tomorrow. 
You'd better start tomorrow morning. Since you have 
to leave at the end of the week, you can't lose any time." 

"Father," said Billy, when the packing for the little 
journey was done and they were about to go early to 
bed for the sake of a full night's rest, "do you suppose there 
are gold mines that could be found here some day?" 

"I shouldn't be surprised, son," said Mr. Carroll. 
"And there are undoubtedly other mines nearly as 
valuable. Honduras contains almost every known min- 
eral. The gold is mixed more or less with silver, galena, 
zinc, and sulphides. There are paying quantities of 
iron, antimony, copper, and mercury. Traces have 



154 A Central American Journey 

been found of opals, marble, chalk, kaolin (porcelain 
clay), saltpeter, aluminum, and asphalt. There are 
also deposits of coal and oil. When the country is once 
fairly settled and has a proper supply of capital and labor, 
there is no knowing what may be found. But after you 
have seen the mine we are going to visit you will under- 
stand better the reasons why capital is necessary to un- 
earth all these various treasures." 




"They passed ox carts loaded with supplies for the mine." 



CHAPTER FOURTEEN 

The Treasure of San Juancito 



A little before eight o'clock the Carroll party set 
off, old Juan and his son Esteban riding with them, for 
their three days among the mountains. As they passed 
the legation of the United States, which is on the moun- 
tain side overlooking Tegucigalpa, Mrs. Carroll remarked : 

"I believe the only thing I should be surprised to see 
in Honduras would be a piece of apple pie. Perhaps 
if we were to dine at the legation we should get that." 

"You might come across it almost anywhere," said 
Mr. Carroll. "The railroad men, bookkeepers, skilled 
mechanics, and clerks in the towns of Honduras are 
mainly Americans, and many of them have their families 

155 



156 A Central American Journey 

with them. Skilled labor is rather scarce here. Most 
of the labor that can be had is good only for such a busi-; 
ness as raising bananas." 

The first part of the journey was a steady climb up a 
mountain trail wide enough for an automobile, but full 
of gullies, with now and then a deep hole washed out by 
the rain. Now and then they passed ox carts loaded 
with supplies for the mine. Billy said they must expect 
to camp out when night came, since at the rate they 
were proceeding they certainly would not reach the mine 
in a day. 

"I guess that is a machine like the one they sent Mr. 
Frost," called Elizabeth, who was riding ahead with 
her father. "Billy ! Lucia ! Just look here, — did you 
ever see such a long team of oxen?" 

They were nearing the Rio Tigre (Tiger River), and 
just ahead was a huge piece of machinery, weighing several 
tons. The head of the men in charge of the team told 
Mr. Carroll that the truck had been built especially for 
the big machine. Ten yoke of oxen drew it. The fore- 
man said that it would take thirty-five days to travel 
the distance of twenty-five miles. At any particularly 
bad place in the road they would have to build a derrick 
to lift the machinery over. 

As they went farther into the forest it grew more and 
more dense, until they could sometimes see only a few 
feet from the road. Many of the things Mr. Hobart 
had told them were useful now, for without his help they 
would never have known what to call half the trees, 
birds, and animals they saw. When it came to flowers, 
they were more at home. Lucia had been taught botany 
by her father, and had once gone with the Carrolls to 
a great botanical garden where she showed them many 



The Treasure of San Juancito 



157 



orchids and other tropical flowers she knew at home. 
Senor Bastido had told them that more than eighty kinds 
of orchids were found in these mountains, and Mrs. Carroll 
began to think that they should find all of them on this 
one ride. There were wonderful tree-ferns and other 
ferns, palms of many kinds, and brilliant flowering shrubs. 
One kind of palm tree Mr. Hobart had pointed out as 
the cohune palm, whose nuts yield an oil that is a good 
substitute for coconut oil. 

About one o'clock Esteban, who was riding ahead 
with Billy, pointed to a little group of buildings. "The 
plantel," he said " — the mine outfit." As they rode 
along the winding trail they caught a glimpse- again 
and again of the buildings of the mine, but it was more 
than an hour before they finally reached it. Mr. Pierce, 
who had caught sight of them some time before, was on 




Oxen are still extensively used in Central America. 



158 A Central American Journey 

the porch of the hotel with his wife to welcome the party, 
and evidently felt that any friends of his friend Hobart 
were his friends. 

It was like a little American town set down in this 
wild country, for at such a distance from supplies the 
miners had to provide for many of their own needs on 
the spot. All around it was a high stockade to keep in 
the mules and cattle and keep out persons who had no 
business at the mine. There were three gates in this 
fence. Below was the little town where many of the 
native miners lived, and tiny villages scattered here and 
there among the mountains were the homes of others. 
The Americans, fifty or more men and half a dozen women, 
lived here, the married men in small houses, the single 
men in long, barrack-like buildings, boarding at the hotel. 

"How many native miners are there?" asked Mrs. 
Carroll. 

"More than a thousand just now," answered Mr. 
Pierce. 

The settlement had its machine shop, its carpenter 
shop, its sawmill, and its hospital. There was a tennis 
court for the Americans. In the store could be found most 
things likely to be needed by those who lived here, but 
as Mrs. Pierce said, there were times when one would 
give anything to be able to shop. "I never appreciated 
my privileges, as Grandfather used to say, until I came 
here," she said, laughing. "When I go home I shall want 
to go down Main Street and buy something at every 
store in town." 

"Betts," said Billy, as they passed the stables, "did 
you ever suppose there were so many mules in the world ? " 

There was the mill where the great machines crushed 
the ore and got it ready to ship to the United States. 



The Treasure of San Juancito 159 

"At every turn the question of labor comes up," said 
Mr. Pierce. "We have to take what we can get and do 
what we can. There isn't any middle class. It's no 
place for small farmers. It isn't like any other country." 

"I see," said Mr. Carroll. "And for that very reason 
dishonest schemers can send out circulars telling people 
that they can come down here and make a fortune with 
a little bank account. To any one at home it would 
seem impossible that so much wealth could exist in a 
country and be so hard to get out." 

"Well," said the superintendent, as he led the way 
to the dining-room, "when you go through the mine 
with me tomorrow you'll see that it isn't the cheapest 
undertaking in the world to get silver even out of a per- 
fectly good mine." 

Dinner was hardly over before the three children nearly 
dropped asleep in their chairs. The long ride in the 
mountain air, the afternoon's sight-seeing, and the 
excellent dinner were more effective than soothing sirup. 
Mr. and Mrs. Carroll soon followed their example — the 
more willingly as Mr. Pierce told them that breakfast 
next morning would be at half-past five. 

Three blasts of the whistle awakened them all at five 
o'clock, and Betty gave a cry of astonishment and delight 
as she looked out of the window. "Mother! Daddy!" 
she called — "look at the clouds! You never saw 
anything like it!" 

Lucia was dressing rapidly, but not losing any of the 
wonderful sight, and Billy had jumped into his clothes 
as only a boy can do and had run outW doors. The 
broad valley with the gleaming river had disappeared, 
and they seemed to be looking out upon vast white 
banks of snow. The sun, just rising over the mountains 



160 



A Central American Journey 




Pan American Union 



The parish church at Tegucigalpa. The buildings on the hill in the 
background are those of the American legation. 



The Treasure of San Juancito 161 

twenty or thirty miles away, tinged the white masses 
with gold, and the green forest rose above them across 
the valley. What seemed to be snow was the mist that 
rose at night from the river, in a dense cloud. 

"Now you see, Betty," said her mother, "how. the 
clouds in the sky look so white at a distance, and so gray 
when they hang low. We are looking down on clouds 
just now, but if we were in the valley we should be in a 
thick fog." 

By six o'clock breakfast was over and they were all 
mounted on mules and riding toward the mine office 
with Mr. Pierce. They left the little settlement by one 
of the gates and went on up the main road a little way, 
and then turned off to the office, where hundreds of 
miners were waiting to begin their day's work. For 
some little time Mr. Pierce was occupied with giving 
each man his supply of candles, caps, fuse, powder, and 
steel. When this had been done they all rode on to the 
place where they were to enter the mine. 

"There are fourteen levels in the mine," the super- 
intendent explained. "The level we just left is Lower 
Two Hundred. This is Upper One Hundred and Fifty, 
and between lies a level called Zero. At the lowest, 
Lower Six Fifty, the ore is hauled out in those little cars 
you see at the mill. On the other levels we take out only 
waste." 

The first thing to which Mr. Pierce called their atten- 
tion was a huge machine run by electricity, which sends 
fresh air into every part of the mine. "This is where 
we shall put the machine you saw on the road — when 
we get it," he explained. "This is the compressor." 

In the shops men were sharpening steel tools with 
which the miners would loosen the ore. 



162 A Central American Journey 

"Now if you will climb into this mud-car we will have 
a ride underground," said Mr. Pierce. "Yesterday you 
rode over this mountain ; today you'll ride through it. 
Sit low and near the middle ; it won't do to risk touching 
the electric wires or getting hit by any of the chutes 
we pass." 

Presently the little car halted where a man was working 
with an electric drill. Farther on, they paused again 
to see two men working together with a hand drill, one 
holding and the other driving. 

"What's that for?" asked Billy. 

"At three o'clock this afternoon all these men drilling 
holes will stop drilling, put sticks of dynamite, cap, and 
fuse in the holes, light the fuse, and go away from there at 
once." 

"Doesn't it sound like the Fourth of July when it goes 
off?" asked Betty, fearfully. 

"If you are at the plantel this afternoon at three o'clock, 
you won't hear a sound," answered Mr. Pierce, smiling. 

The car stopped at the entrance and they climbed out, 
realizing that they had actually been through the moun- 
tain. 

"I know now how the world must look to a rat," said 
Mrs. Carroll. 

In a sawmill not far from the entrance they found an 
old Michigan lumberman who had been in the country 
so long that he did not care to go back home. Oxen 
were hauling logs to be sawed into lumber for the mine. 
Many were oak, and there were maple, pine, and many 
other kinds of timber. 

When they came out of the tunnel on the mountain 
side, they found everything wrapped in a fog so thick 
that it looked dangerous to start down the trail. 



The Treasure of San Juancito 163 

"The fog we saw in the valley has climbed up," said 
Billy. 

"It always does," said Betty. "Don't you remember 
how the fog climbed up over our camp last year? But 
this is whiter." 

"It is whiter because there is more of it," said Lucia. 
"As the sun comes up it will roll away." 

Sure enough, by the time they reached the hotel the 
air was clear and they could see the whole valley. 

"Father," said Billy, as they sat down to rest a few 
minutes, "did you know there was so much to a mine 
besides the digging ? " 

Mr. Carroll smiled. "I knew in a general way that 
there was a good deal, but I never went through a mine 
like this before. I suspect the most interesting thing 
is to come." 

"What's that?" 

"As soon as mother is rested a little we are going through 
the big mill where the ore is crushed. I warn you it will 
be rather a tiring trip." 

Mrs. Carroll decided she had had enough sight-seeing 
for one day, and Lucia, who had no special interest in 
machinery, volunteered to keep her company. But 
Billy, who would not have missed a single detail of the 
mining business, and Elizabeth, who never would be 
left behind when Billy was interested, started off with 
Mr. Carroll and one of the engineers to see the great 
mill. 

The children counted the steps down from the general 
offices and found that there were not quite five hundred. 
First they saw the ore dumped into an enormous bin 
from the cars which ran from the mine. They went 
below and saw it crushed into a fine, mudlike mass by 



164 A Central American Journey 

huge stamps that kept up a constant pounding. As 
they went on down they saw it ground and washed and 
treated with chemicals until it reached the large presses 
at the bottom of the mill. From these it went in solu- 
tion to the top for its final treatment in the refinery. 

"I wish we could go in solution," sighed Elizabeth, 
as they climbed the last of the stairs. "This is like 
the Washington Monument without any elevator." 

In the refinery they saw the men taking from the canvas 
of the presses a fine black powder which was 95 per cent 
silver. This powder was packed in little boxes to be 
shipped to the United States. In the vault they saw 
rows of these boxes, each containing a thousand dollars' 
worth of the precious dust. The children looked at it 
rather solemnly. 

"I don't think I ever saw such a valuable place as 
this before," said Elizabeth. 

When they got back to the hotel again they found Mrs. 
Carroll and Lucia, fresh, clean, and rested, sitting on the 
porch, and were glad enough to join them. At four 
o'clock there was a match game of tennis in the court 
near the general office, and they all went with the other 
Americans to see it. The spectators sat on the wall, 
and tea was served. 

After dinner they sat talking with their hospitable 
fellow countrymen until the moon came up. The valley 
by moonlight was like fairyland, the river winding south- 
ward to Fonseca Bay like a thread of pure silver. 

"Why don't they have a steamboat up the river from 
Amapala ? Doesn't this river go there P " inquired Billy. 
"Amapala is on Fonseca Bay." 

"Too many rapids," said Mr. Pierce. "There may be 
a railway some day up the valley." 



The Treasure of San Juancito 



165 



"The Spaniards didn't have silver mines here, did 
they?" Betty inquired presently from her perch on her 
father's knee. "They didn't have machines and things 
to get the ore ground up?"' 

"No, pussy, but they explored Honduras rather care- 
fully," answered Mr. Carroll. "We haven't found their 
tracks in Tegucigalpa because it is a new city. Up to 
1885 the capital was at Comayagua, where Cortes and 
his engineers put it." 

"How do you suppose they ever did that job with 
the instruments they had?" asked one of the mining 
engineers. "I knew a fellow who was with the surveyors 
when they went over the ground in the 'eighties. He 
said Cortes planned to found Comayagua exactly half- 
way between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. When 
the modern engineers went through, they found that 




A pack train loading potatoes before a prominent Central American 
wholesale store. 



166 A Central American Journey 

the plaza of Comayagua was only about three miles 
from the center of the country." 

"What made them build a new capital?" asked 
Billy, feeling a decided respect for Cortes and his 
Spaniards. 

"Comayagua wasn't popular for some reason," said 
Mr. Carroll. "During the eighty years after Honduras 
gained its independence, the population dropped from 
30,000 to about 5000. It wasn't a place I should choose 
to live in when I saw it. The fact that a city is in the 
geographical middle of the country isn't really any reason 
for living there, you know." 

"Cortes would like to be on hand when our mules 
get under way tomorrow," said the engineer. "You 
ought to see that, Mr. Carroll. You can wait till nine 
o'clock all right, can't you?" 

"To see the mules?" asked Mr. Carroll. 

"To see the mules with $120,000 worth of silver on 
their backs," answered the young man. "That's about 
what you expect to send down this time, isn't it, Mr. 
Pierce?" 

"Almost that," the superintendent assented. "Fifty- 
nine mules with two boxes of precipitate to each mule. 
You'd better get a snapshot of those animals ; they're 
really quite uncommon." 

"I think we must," said Mr. Carroll. 

At nine the next morning, accordingly, the Carrolls, 
ready to start on their own journey, were standing in 
front of the hotel to see the mules start on theirs. Besides 
the animals loaded with treasure there were half a dozen 
extra mules to carry supplies for the trip or replace any 
mules that gave out on the long trip to Amapala. A dozen 
Honduran soldiers with old-fashioned guns were acting 



The Treasure of San Juancito 167 

as guards, but Mr. Pierce said there was really no risk 
of robbery. 

"The boxes are too heavy to carry," he explained, " and 
if robbers were foolish enough to try it and by any chance 
got a part of the precipitate they could not sell it; so 
what use would it be to them? We have never had a 
robbery yet. It was tried two or three times, but the 
thieves were caught." 

After seeing the last pair of wagging mule-ears disappear 
down the trail, the Carrolls took their own way back to 
Tegucigalpa, feeling that they had had a most wonderful 
experience. 




"The idea of a live volcano was a rather disturbing one." 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN 
The Small Republic of Salvador 

The Carrolls on reaching Amapala found to their sur- 
prise that Senor Bastido was awaiting them. Also to 
their surprise and to Elizabeth's especial regret, he 
announced that he was going to take Lucia back to the 
ranch with him. He had not expected to be able to 
join her so soon, and did not feel that he could get along 
without her a day longer than he had to. 

"Why not come with us?" asked Mrs. Carroll. The 
Central American shook his head. 

"I have some work that must be done," he said, "and 
there are affairs at the ranch that need attention. We 
shall meet later, in Guatemala. I promise to come to 
your house-warming whenever that may be." 

Elizabeth could not help feeling rather lonely when 
they took the boat westward and left Lucia and her 
father awaiting the next boat in the other direction. She 

168 



The Small Republic of Salvador 169 

was rather glad to find soon after the voyage had begun, 
that her mother had made friends with a family of Salva- 
doreans, a mother and two daughters. The daughters 
were thirteen and sixteen years of age. Beatriz had 
spent three years at a French convent school, and her 
father and mother and Carmelita had been to Panama 
to meet her. The father of the family, Senor Barranco, 
had a plantation not far from San Salvador, and he and 
Mr. Carroll discovered that they had many friends in 
common. 

It is the ambition of Salvadoreans who have property, 
to educate their children in Europe. They are to be met 
with in London and Paris oftener than in New York or 
Boston. The students and travelers from Salvador who 
return and become part of the life of their own coun- 
try, as nearly all do, have a very decided influence on the 
activities of that small republic. Salvador is a very 
up-to-date country. 

Mr. Carroll commented on the tendency of Salvadoreans 
■ — and, indeed, Central Americans generally — to visit 
Europe rather than the United States. 

" I cannot say how it is with a Costa Rican or a Guate- 
maltecan," replied Senor Barranco, "but speaking for 
our own people, I think there are good reasons for it. 
When we travel, we usually travel for pleasure. If we 
go to a city in the United States, we are regarded simply 
as foreigners. You have a large population of foreign 
birth or descent, it is true, but they regard themselves 
as American, citizens of your country, which of course 
we are not. If we do not speak English very well, the 
chances are that we shall have no one to talk to. In 
New York, it is true, there are certain places where 
Central Americans or South Americans can find their 



170 A Central American Journey 

own people, but when one visits another country one 
would like to know its people. 

"In Europe we find those of our own class, of what- 
ever nationality, generally able to speak French if not 
Spanish. In any case they do not think us ignorant 
for not speaking English. I had my daughters taught 
English for the same reason that I learned it myself, 
because I feel sure that it will be more and more the 
common language of commerce on this side of the world, 
and of international social life also. Your people will not 
learn languages if they can help it. It is quite exceptional 
for my wife to find a lady from your country who can talk 
with her as Senora Carroll is now talking, in Spanish." 

"My reason for having my children taught Spanish," 
said Mr. Carroll, smiling, "was much the same as yours 
for having your children taught English. I hope that 
in the near future the republics of the New World and 
especially those of this continent will be much more 
closely allied than they have been. In that case, the 
greater the number of our people who know both Spanish 
and English, the better will be our understanding on 
international questions of all kinds. One might almost 
say that Spanish is the universal language south of the 
Rio Grande and English the common tongue north of 
it. Portuguese and Spanish are so nearly akin that to 
know one is to know more or less of the other." 

La Union, the first port the steamer was to reach in 
Salvador, can be seen on leaving Amapala, and during 
this conversation the steamer had been winding in and 
out among picturesque islands and through narrow chan- 
nels, while the quartermaster constantly called out the 
results of the soundings. At this point Mr. Carroll 
beckoned Billy from the other side of the deck to see a 



The Small Republic of Salvador 171 

boiling spring near the edge of one island. The jets 
of steam were in plain sight. 

"Dad," said Billy, presently, "what is that man call- 
ing out every now and then for?" 

"To prevent us from running aground," said his 
father. "The water is so shoal here that we have to 
keep twisting in and out to get into the harbor at all, 
and they have to take soundings continually to make 
sure of the depth. It was fearfully hot here the last 
time I came, but we are in luck — there's a good 
breeze." 

There is no good wharf at any of the three ports of Sal- 
vador, La Union, La Libertad, and Acajutla. The steam- 
ship lines are more concerned with freight than with 
passengers, human beings and live stock being landed 
or taken on board in whatever manner is possible. La 
Union is the port for San Miguel, an inland town of 
about 25,000 population. Nevertheless, the loading and 
unloading occupied the greater part of twenty-four hours. 
Several passengers appeared, two or three well dressed, 
the others bare-headed and very informally clad. Parrots 
and monkeys appeared among the freight, the parrots 
having a great deal to say for themselves, mainly in 
Spanish, and the monkeys expressing their views freely, 
in the language of monkeys. Altogether, for so small a 
town, La Union was quite animated. 

As the steamer crept along the shore, Beatriz and 
Carmelita pointed out to Betty and Billy the cone-shaped 
peaks in the mountain ranges seen against the sky. The 
mountains here are very near the shore. They saw the 
rainbow wings of flying fish, and once there was a rush 
to the other side of the deck when a whale was seen spout- 
ing in the distance. 



172 A Central American Journey 

On reaching La Libertad several of the passengers 
had to go ashore. They were taken in a basket hold- 
ing four, raised from the deck and over the side by means 
of a derrick and lowered into the lighter. There was a 
great deal of squealing and nervous laughter, and a 
little lady with a great deal of black hair and very pretty 
hands and feet nearly had hysterics. 

"It is not comfortable," admitted Beatriz, "especially 
when the sea is rough and the weather not warm." 

"But to scream," said little Carmelita, with a lift of 
her dainty chin, "that is so silly !" 

Betty was not sure that she would not have screamed 
herself ten minutes later if it had not been for that remark. 

Shots were heard on the other side of the boat, followed 
by shouting, and a crowd gathered where Mr. Carroll 
and Billy were standing. But they reappeared almost 
at once, laughing. 

"They are shooting sharks," said Mr. Carroll, as he 
came toward his wife and daughter. "Come and see the 
fun." 

The dark back-fin of the shark sheared through the 
water, and another shot cracked sharply. By the time 
the sharks had all either been shot or had wisely departed 
to the depths of the sea, it was growing dark. 

"If we reach Acajutla at night, you will see the Light- 
house of Salvador, " said Carmelita, proudly. 

"Izalco, the great volcano," explained Beatriz. "At 
night you may see the eruption." 

The idea of a live volcano in view of the steamer was 
a rather disturbing one to Elizabeth, but when she saw 
it she quite forgot to be afraid. There was a sudden 
glow of flame at the summit of the mountain, then a 
ribbon of red ran down its side. It was astonishing to 



The Small Republic of Salvador 173 




Pan American Union 

Landing passengers at La Libertad. 



learn that this ribbon was at least half a mile wide and 
a hundred miles long. Beatriz and Carmelita seemed to 
regard the volcano with real affection, somewhat as if 
it were a tame elephant. The Carrolls felt as if it would 
be a little impolite to suggest that there could possibly 
be any danger in a pet volcano. 

"It isn't tame enough to be commonplace," Mr. 
Carroll answered dryly, when his wife said something 



174 A Central American Journey 

of the sort. The Salvadoreans had gone to make ready 
for their landing. "There have been disturbances more 
or less for more than a hundred years, and lava some- 
times flows for weeks at a time." 

"Senora Barranco's father has a plantation quite 
near the foot of it," said Mrs. Carroll. "All she had to 
say on the subject was, 'It enriches the soil.'" 

"Well, it does; she's perfectly right about that," 
assented Mr. Carroll. "Incidentally this is the only 
young volcano with which I am acquainted. It made its 
first appearance in the latter part of the eighteenth 
century." 

"Daddy, how could it?" asked Betty. 

"What did it look like ?" queried Billy. 

"There was a series of earthquakes first; then the 
earth opened and streams of fiery lava shot out. Showers 
of hot ashes fell on the surrounding country, and witnesses 
have recorded that for a long time there were explosions 
every minute or two. In a few weeks the volcano rose 
to a height of almost 4000 feet." 

"Have they had any more signs of new volcanoes?" 
asked Billy, soberly. 

"Not exactly. But it's time for us to go ashore. 
Here come the Barrancos." 

Evidently the Salvadoreans had had a consultation 
while making their arrangements for landing, for Mr. 
and Mrs. Carroll were agreeably surprised and Billy 
and Elizabeth excited and pleased, at receiving a cordial 
invitation to visit the Barrancos during their stay. This 
was indeed good fortune. They could spare only a few 
days for Salvador, and had not hoped to do much more 
than see the capital and perhaps a little of the country. 

After her long absence from her own country Beatriz 



The Small Republic of Salvador 175 




Pan American Union 



A rocky island in Lake Ilopango, Salvador, pushed up through 
750 feet of water by volcanic action. 



was evidently delighting in every familiar sight and 
sound, and partly for her pleasure and partly, the Carrolls 
felt sure, for their own, an excursion was arranged to 
Lake Ilopango, near the capital. This is one of the most 
curious of lakes. It is on a plateau about 1600 feet high 
and surrounded by high mountains, and is about 25 
square miles in area. In 1879 this lake suddenly rose 
five feet. The rivers which form its outlets changed 
from sluggish streams to rapids and waterfalls. Then 
it began to sink so fast that the people feared they were 
going to lose it altogether through the channel of 
the Rio Jiboa. There were explosions and earthquake 
shocks. Then gases began puffing out of the middle of 
the lake. Next a little island poked up its head. It 
grew larger, and other little islands appeared around it. 
Then volumes of fiery lava and ashes broke out. By 



176 



A Central American Journey 



day all Salvador was darkened, and at night all Salvador 
was bright. When the fireworks were finally over, an 
island 150 feet high had been formed in the middle of 
the lake, and this the Carroll children beheld with some 
awe. 

"Dad, was this what you meant when you said there 
hadn't been signs of other new volcanoes, or not exactly ? " 
asked Billy, as they strolled along the shore of the lake 
a little apart from the others. 

"Yes, I had this in mind. It may remain just as it 
is, and it may not." 

"Well, if it's a baby volcano maybe it'll be grown up 
when we see it again," said Billy, cheerfully. "But I 
should think the people in this neighborhood would like 
it better as it is." 




The volcano of Izalco in eruption, showing the crater from the 
Sonsonate side. 



The Small Republic of Salvador 177 

They found the Barranco plantation a charming old 
place on land which, as Carmelita proudly said, had been 
Spanish land and Barranco land for three hundred years. 
Their luck was even more unusual than it seemed. Senor 
Barranco had a balsam camp in the remote forest of his 
estate, and at this season of the year the balsam-gather- 
ing was going on. As this tree is found only in a limited 
strip of territory along the Pacific coast, chances to see 
such work are rare. 

Senor Barranco, with his sons Luis and Ramon, tall 
young men who rode like vaqueros and shot like huntsmen, 
went with the Carrolls to see the balsameros at work. 

These men are natives who live in the woods and know 
exactly how the tree can be cut to extract the juice with- 
out injury to its life. The tree does not usually grow 
in groups but singly, and is a stout tree about 40 inches 
in diameter and 80 to 115 feet high. It is a relative of 
the acacia, and also of the bean and pea family. It is 
a very beautiful tree, with white outer bark, a red inner 
bark, white blossoms, and fruit pale yellow with a single 
seed. The wood is hard and durable, and the wood of 
the furniture in Beatriz's newly furnished sitting-room 
was of this tree. A Salvadorean carpenter had used 
it in making a clever copy of some old French furniture. 
While there are almost no furniture factories in Central 
America, there are many workmen who can make a good 
copy of any imported piece they have as a model. 

The balsamero, as Ramon explained, first scratches the 
tree with a blunt instrument at the time of the new moon, 
just deeply enough for the inner bark to be exposed. The 
sap from this cut is collected on pieces of cloth attached 
to the scratch or ventana (window), as it is called. When 
soaked, this cloth is replaced by dry pieces. The cloths 



178 A Central American Journey 

are collected from time to time and placed in a kettle 
of boiling water for half an hour. The impurities rising 
to the surface are skimmed off, and the balsam is squeezed 
out, collected in a mass, and delivered to the dealer as 
crude balsam. The merchant heats it in a caldron to 
clarify it, and finally it is poured into rectangular tins 
holding about 35 pounds each, for shipping. Salvador's 
yearly export of "Peruvian balsam," as it is called, 
amounts to about 130,000 pounds. 

"I don't see why it's called balsam of Peru," said 
Betty. 

"It is produced in Peru also, and while the balsam of 
Salvador has always been well known it was shipped 
across the Isthmus and went with the other balsam 
to Europe," her father explained. 

"What's it good for?" inquired Billy. 

"The Indians used it in surgery, for it is a natural 
antiseptic and has a wonderful curative property on a 
wound. The Spaniards learned its usefulness from 
them. It is good for some skin diseases, and now I 
believe they are using cinnamic acid, one of its chief 
constituents, in treating tuberculosis." 

In staying with the Barrancos, Elizabeth and Billy 
found their association with Lucia valuable. Not only 
had they a fair understanding of Spanish, but they under- 
stood the Central American way of life well enough to 
accept easily even customs that seemed strange. Furni- 
ture was arranged in a much more formal way than it 
would be in an American home. When friends were 
invited to meet the Carrolls, although it happened to 
be a very hot day, every one appeared in the most careful 
formal dress. 

"When I first visited Salvador," Mr. Carroll had 



The Small Republic of Salvador 179 




Pan American Union 



A balsam tree cut with a trapo. 



told them before they came, "I had occasion to go to a 
funeral. Every one walked to the grave, and the men 
listened bare-headed in the broiling sun, to the funeral 
oration. Any one who had made a comment showing 
the least disrespect of this proceeding would have given 
mortal offense. It isn't much to be willing to wear a 
frock coat and silk hat on an occasion when one is expected 
to, and not to do it is very bad form. It impresses the 
Salvadoreans somewhat as it would impress us if a man 
came to dinner and between courses pushed back his 
chair and put his feet on the table." 

"Father," said Elizabeth privately, the day before 
they went away, "I wish you'd tell me of something nice 
that I could do for Beatriz and Carmelita. I do like 
them so much." 

"Nothing easier," said Mr. Carroll. "Make a note 
in that little travelers' notebook I gave you, of the feast 
day of any Central American you meet, — not the birth- 
day, but the feast of the patron saint. When that comes 



180 A Central American Journey 

round, send some remembrance — a card or telegram, 
if nothing more. Central Americans value a gift accord- 
ing to the sentiment, not the cost." 

"I never saw people send as many telegrams as they 
do here," Betty said thoughtfully. "Beatriz sent one 
to her cousin when her cousin's baby was christened." 

"That is a Salvadorean custom," answered her father. 
"When any family event occurs — a birth, a christening, 
a wedding, an illness, anything — it is proper to send a 
telegram expressing one's interest. But the people are 
far from spending all their time and thought on social 
customs. Salvador is one of the best-governed countries 
I know, and whether because of the unexpected earth- 
quakes and other changes or not, the inhabitants are as 
a rule uncommonly wide-awake and well informed." 




A native spinner in Central America. 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN 
Keeping Shop in Salvador 

One morning, as the Carrolls were in San Salvador 
with SenoraBarranco and her daughters, Beatriz exclaimed, 
"Look, mamacita, isn't that a new shop?" 

"Quite new," answered the senora, after a glance 
through her lorgnette at the bright, freshly painted door- 
way. "Cardenas — it must be the son of old Miguel 
Cardenas who sold fruit on that corner so many years. 
I remember his telling me that the boy had a position 
with some San Francisco firm-" 

A little later, as Mrs. Carroll had some shopping to 
do and the Salvadoreans a visit to pay to friends in the 
country, the party separated, and found themselves 
passing the new shop again. Mr. Carroll paused. 

"Suppose we try this place," he suggested. "I believe 
this is a young man I met when I was in San Francisco 
last year. I'd like to see how his plan is working out. 

181 



182 A Central American Journey 

When I made his acquaintance he was drawing a good 
salary from a big fruit company and looking forward 
to a business of his own." 

A brand-new shop, too new to be overrun with cus- 
tomers, is rather a fascinating place, and Betty and Billy 
had never had a chance to explore one before. The 
young merchant was brown, slim, and good looking, and 
had a certain sparkle in his eye and enthusiasm in his 
voice which made it clear that he believed in himself and 
his business. He and Mr. Carroll soon got into a con- 
versation about the general conditions of trade in Salvador. 
It was evident that the Salvadorean had kept his eyes 
open during his apprenticeship in the United States. 

"There are all sorts of small things which have to be 
considered," he said, "and though they seem unimportant 
they really matter a good deal. For instance, I am tak- 
ing care of orders for some of the small shopkeepers in 
other Central American towns, which I send in with 
my own. I have a friend in the United States who fills 
them for me, and knows what I want. He is a clerk in 
one of the big importing houses." 

"You find it better to order through them than direct 
from the manufacturers?" 

"Very often it is a great advantage. For example, 
here is an order for a small lot of hosiery of different 
sizes and colors. This merchant wants to give his cus- 
tomers as much variety as possible. His is the only shop 
in a small place, and no lady wants to wear exactly the 
same thing every other lady she knows is wearing. Now, 
we took really a good deal of trouble to fill that order. 
My friend had to buy of three manufacturers to get all 
the sizes. You see, in a great house like that, with 
connections all over the country, of which they keep 



Keeping Shop in Salvador 183 

track by card catalogs, it is possible to know where to 
send for goods without wasting time." 

"I see," said Mr. Carroll. "It must be rather an 
advantage to the house also to have you as a link between 
their business and the country merchant." 

"I think it may prove so," said the young man, mod- 
estly. "Here, for example, is a new lot of perfumery. 
I ordered the bottles to be of a certain size because I 
could get the best rates on them in that way. A change 
in the size of the bottles would have meant a change in 
the duty. I ordered also a certain style of bottle because 
I knew that some of my customers would be familiar 
with it, and it would be just as well to have that extra 
advantage. My friend found that he could not get that 
exact style of bottle because it was no longer made, so 
he sent me the best he could find. Some of my customers 
like it even better, and some don't. It is a mistake 
for any one to think that Central Americans are always 
looking for the latest novelty as the people of your big 
cities do. They are much more likely to demand some- 
thing they have bought before." 

"And yet you have, if anything, more variety here 
than there would be in such a shop at home," said Mrs. 
Carroll, as she examined some bright cotton goods suited 
to cushion covers. 

"That is another matter in which our trade is unlike 
yours," said the merchant. "A storekeeper in the United 
States when ordering bolts of goods will ask for perhaps 
fifty per cent of the color most worn, twenty-five per 
cent of the next most popular, and the rest scattering. 
I am speaking, of course, of the small shops in small 
towns. Here, as we have the metric system, my order 
is made out in tens or in fives, and each set is of separate 



184 A Central American Journey 

colors. When it comes in the cloth is laid out in bolts 
on a table, and the shopkeeper from some mountain 
village orders a bolt of each set." 

"What's this for?" asked Elizabeth, fingering some 
brilliant colored drilling. 

"Mattresses or awnings. We sell a great deal of this 
gray drilling to the Indian and ladino farmers for trousers 
and overalls. Here again the importing house has an 
advantage. The duty in every Central and South 
American country is different, and often the rates are 
according to the width of the cloth or the form of the 
consignment. The importing house keeps track of 
the various rates in the different countries, and secures 
goods on which there will be the lowest possible duty to 

pay-" 

"Do you have much trouble with breakage?" asked 
Mr. Carroll. "I see that you carry more or less glass 
and china." 

Cardenas gave a little shrug. "It might be worse," 
he said. "One firm with which I deal packs so carefully 
that seventy-five per cent of its glass arrives in perfect 
condition. I have been told by other merchants here 
that they have had orders come in with not more than ten 
per cent of the glass unbroken. But, I think that your 
manufacturers are beginning to understand this need 
for careful packing. They do not always understand, 
however, why our orders are often so small. Climatic 
conditions may be such that goods left on shelves will 
spoil if not sold. We have damp, we have insects, we 
have heat, and most of our people cannot settle their 
bills till the crops are in. The retail merchant has to 
wait for his money, and if the wholesaler or the manu- 
facturer makes him buy in large lots and pay cash you 



Keeping Shop in Salvador 185 

can see that he needs a big capital. With a long credit 
and careful buying, he can get along all right, but he 
cannot change the customs of the country." 

Going to the rear of the shop, Cardenas took from a 
high shelf a box of toilet goods. "Mr. Carroll," he said, 
"since you seem to be interested in the improvement of 
trade between your country and ours, here is something 
which your merchants will — what do you say ? — have 
to look out about. As I have told you, our people are 
disposed to buy goods they know, and sometimes, not 
knowing English, they have to judge by the general 
appearance of the package, the trademark if there is 
one, and the color and style of the label. In the compe- 
tition for our trade some of your unscrupulous rivals 
will do things like this." 

At a little distance the wrapper on the cake of soap 
and the label on the perfumery looked exactly like that 
of a well-known brand, but although the color of the 
paper and style of type were the same, and the trade- 
mark almost the same, the article was not even American. 

"You see," said young Cardenas, "if your best goods 
are imitated in this way, and if no effort is made to 
hold trade and explain to the customer personally the 
difference between the genuine and the imitation, the 
honest American manufacturer is at a terrible disad- 
vantage. I hope that in time, as our people become 
better educated, it will not be so easy to fool them. It 
is less easy in Salvador than in some other Central Ameri- 
can countries because we are more familiar with foreign 
goods and ways. But in the meantime, if your young 
salesmen find that their efforts are often vain, let them 
try to discover the reason. Once secure our trade and 
you will keep it, be sure of that." 



186 A Central American Journey 




Keeping Shop in Salvador 187 

"Can one get well-made furniture here?" asked Mrs. 
Carroll. 

Cardenas gave another little shrug. "I hope you will 
be able to buy it in course of time. Most furniture 
from the United States is cheap and often put together 
with glue — then it soon comes apart. Cheap varnish 
is bad also in tropical climates. I talked when I was in 
New York with one manufacturer who thought he might 
be able to send me some light, strong, well-finished pieces 
in what you call 'knocked down' form, which could be 
put together without glue. But he said that to give me 
what I wanted he would have to design a special model. 
It must be in sets, — a set of straight chairs and the 
settee. As you may have noticed, our ladies are more 
formal in their furnishing than yours, and to please them 
the furniture must be of formal appearance. Leather 
and upholstery are not liked because — " another shrug 
— "they harbor insects. Bent wood furniture with 
cane seats and a hard oil finish is what you can get most 
easily, and most of that has been made in Europe." 

It was clear that the young Salvadorean had some 
hope of becoming an importer on a large scale himself 
some day, and as Mrs. Carroll said after they left the 
trim little shop, if he made all his selections as intelligently 
and tastefully as he did the upholstery goods and souvenirs 
they had purchased, he might carry out his ambitions. 

"The Salvadoreans are wide-awake people," said Mr. 
Carroll. "The way they are putting up their new build- 
ings shows it r That church, my dear, is constructed with 
a special view to earthquakes. It is of pressed steel 
plates inside and out, bolted to wrought-iron framework, 
with a corrugated iron roof. Would you ever think it?" 

Later they saw the handsome national hospital, built 



188 A Central American Journey 

in the same way. The National Palace, or capitol build- 
ing, occupying a whole square and in the form of a hollow 
square, was of reenforced concrete. So was the national 
theater, in process of building. 

"Not a piece of wood in that building," said Mr. 
Carroll. "And most of the building material comes from 
the United States." 

The Barrancos, however, did not approve of corrugated 
iron. They objected to the noise during the rainy season. 
As for impregnated paper and other substitutes, they are 
out of the question in the tropics. Asbestos shingles 
had been considered by some builders. As Mr. Carroll 
assured Senor Barranco, if the people of Salvador gave 
as much thought and determination to the problem in 
the future as they had in the last few years, they would 
somehow or other find out how to build an earthquake- 
resisting and fireproof structure that would still be in 
harmony with the ancient Spanish architecture and their 
own taste. 

The enterprise and ingenuity of the Carroll children 
were as interesting to the two Spanish-American girls 
as the life of the old plantation was to the visitors. From 
their babyhood Billy and Elizabeth had been given to 
understand that they must not expect older people to 
amuse them. Both their father and mother often spent 
a good deal of time in telling them stories and playing 
with them, but when other people were busy the children 
had always been told to entertain themselves. They 
often invented their own games, which to Beatriz and 
Carmelita seemed quite wonderful. 

"Daddy," said Elizabeth to her father one afternoon, 
"may we borrow your big map? We've made a new 
game." 



Keeping Shop in Salvador 189 

"It's in the suitcase," said Mr. Carroll, amused. "Be 
careful of it, that's all." 

"Oh, we will !" sang Elizabeth, as she skipped away. 

Two hours later a large sheet of manila paper had been 
covered with a map of Central America drawn with 
colored crayons. All bodies of water were indicated 
with wavy blue lines, the mountains and hills in gray, 
shading into black on the high ranges, and the volcanoes 
ornamented with red. The tablelands were brown and 
the low land green. Forests were shown as they are 
on old maps, by little treelike figures dotted over the 
ground. It was really not a bad topographical map, and 
a network of lines in black crayon divided it into sixty- 
four squares. The paper had been folded before the 
map was drawn to make these squares, and the lines 
ruled on the folds. Each square was numbered. In 
candy boxes and covers were many oval counters of 
cardboard bearing such words as "Gold," "Silver," 
"Coffee," "Bananas," "Cacao," and so on. 

"You see," explained Elizabeth proudly to the older 
people, "we put the counters face down in a box and draw 
in turn. If we draw 'Coffee,' we can take up a claim in 
some place where coffee could grow. If we get 'Gold,' 
we put down a counter in some square where there could 
be a gold mine. If we make a mistake we have to put 
back the counter, and you can't put one into a square 
that has one in it already. The one who gets ten counters 
on the map first, wins." 

"How do you decide whether your counter is on the 
right place or not?" asked her mother. . 

"The guidebook has a list of what grows in each coun- 
try and what part of the country it's in," Billy answered. 
"Of course you can't put a shark counter on land, but 



190 A Central American Journey 

you can put any kind of fish in any part of the ocean 
squares. We didn't have any counters for the cities, but 
I s'pose we could." 

It was agreed that the children had hit on a real idea. 
Mr. Carroll promised that when they were settled in 
some place they should have a real map and wooden 
counters which they could decorate in oil colors, and that 
he would help them make out a typewritten list of exactly 
what could be allowed on each square, for reference. 

The next day, with real regret, they left the friendly 
Barrancos and departed for Acajutla, to take the steamer 
for San Jose in Guatemala. 



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
From Coast to Capital in Guatemala 

A magnificent range 
of mountains rises in the 
background of the hot 
and squalid little seaport 
of San Jose in Guate- 
mala. Fifty miles away 
are the peaks of Agua and 
Fuego, 12,000 feet high. 
Between these mountains 
the railway train passes 
to the city of Guatemala, 
ninety miles away and 
4800 feet above sea level. 

The journey took all 
day. At about noon the 
Carrolls found themselves 
in Escuintla, where the 
mercury stood at 115 de- 
grees. 

"Father, is there any hotter place than this in the 
world?" asked Elizabeth. Billy had just expressed the 
opinion that you could fry eggs on the station platform 
if it was cleaner. 

"Zacapa, on the eastern side of the slope, is the same 
sort of place," answered Mr. Carroll. "That is the 
halfway station between the capital and Puerto Barrios. 
Don't lose your patience ; it will be cooler after a while." 

"Central America is all ups and downs," observed 
Billy, craning his neck at the huge volcanoes above them. 

191 




An Indian carrier with a load on 
his back. 



192 



A Central American Journey 





From Coast to Capital in Guatemala 193 

"Father, do you suppose we could make a relief map of 
it in the garden when we have one — have rocks and ce- 
ment for the mountain ranges and plant seeds in the 
green part? Betts wants to, and I thought maybe we 
could." 

"Your forests might outgrow your mountains," said 
Mr. Carroll, "but if you want to take the trouble there's 
no reason why it couldn't be done. You'll see something 
of the kind at the Temple of Minerva." 

"Where is that?" 

"Every Guatemalan city has a public building for 
the use of its school children. School festivals and like 
celebrations are held in them. The official name is 
the Temple of Minerva." 

The scenery on the long upward journey was more and 
more beautiful, and although it was too late to see much 
of the capital when the train arrived, the children went 
to bed with lively expectations of interesting sights 
next day. 

The city of Guatemala is built on a plateau, around 
which the ground slopes into a deep valley. This, as 
Mr. Carroll explained when they started out to see the 
city, was supposed to be a reason for its freedom from 
earthquakes. As in the case of other Central American 
cities they had visited, the capital had originally been 
built on another site. Guatemala la Antigua, now 
usually called Antigua, was thirty miles west of Guate- 
mala la Nueva, the present city, and was founded in 
1524. In 1541 a flood of water from the volcano now 
called Volcan de Agua destroyed it, and it was rebuilt 
between Agua and Fuego. At one time it was among 
the finest cities in America, and in 1773 it had 60,000 
inhabitants, or more than any city in the United States 



194 A Central American Journey 




From Coast to Capital in Guatemala 195 

with the possible exception of New York. In that year 
an earthquake destroyed it, and although it was rebuilt, 
the present capital was founded in 1776. 

Like other Latin cities they found Guatemala built 
around a plaza, on one side of which was the beautiful 
cathedral, on the other a government building. On 
the other two sides were rows of arches, once part of a 
monastery, but now a feature of rows of shops. It was 
in this plaza in 1821 that .Central America threw off 
the yoke of Spain. 

"Here is the Temple of Minerva," said Mr. Carroll, 
as they were out riding next morning. 

The building was simple but attractive. There were 
no walls, and the broad roof was supported by columns. 
From all sides, broad stone steps led up to the stone 
floor, and in the shady interior little brown children 
were playing. At one side of the building on an open 
space was an odd-looking mass of rocky pointed hillocks. 

"Look at this," said Mr. Carroll. 

It was a relief map of Guatemala, occupying a space 
150 feet square, the highest mountain about eight feet 
high, with actual water flowing down the channels of 
the rivers, and little iron rails indicating the railway 
lines. Every port and geographical feature was shown. 

"Jupiter!" said Billy, with a long sigh. "I guess we 
won't be able to do anything like this !" 

"We could make one just as pretty," said Elizabeth, 
stoutly. " Can't we, Daddy ? " 

"I think you can, in course of time. This will make 
an interesting model and probably be more or less useful 
to you. If we live here we shall have a garden and we 
must have a water supply, so that water could be piped 
from a fountain." 



196 A Central American Journey 

During the next few days Mrs. Carroll was much 
occupied in receiving calls from friends of Mr. Carroll and 
Senor Bastido, and as some of these friends had children, 
there was much to interest Elizabeth and Billy. They 
had reason to be glad that they knew Spanish well enough 
to talk freely, for none of the children they met knew 
English. One of Mr. Carroll's firm beliefs was that 
unless they knew a language well enough to read and 
speak it easily it was hardly worth while to learn it at 
all, and he had encouraged Lucia to teach them all she 
could. Mrs. Carroll had also read them little stories 
in Spanish, and had spoken Spanish with them more or 
less, at home. 

Among their visitors was Senor Perez, a big, genial 
Spanish-American who had a coffee fmca, or plantation, 
about twenty miles away. He gave them a hearty 
invitation to visit the place, and as Mr. Carroll had an 
errand in that direction he took the children to see it. 

A coffee plantation is a very pretty sight. Coffee 
needs upland soil, somewhat shaded. Newcomers have 
been known to clear land completely before starting 
a plantation, but very little coffee rewarded their labor. 
Senor Perez, who planted his coffee on land only partly 
cleared, got a very good production to the acre. The 
coffee sold in Panama for ten cents a pound, and as he 
had some 10,000 trees his finca brought him in a con- 
siderable income. 

The bushy little trees of the finca were about eight 
feet high, and the children were surprised to find that 
the ripe berries were not dark brown. 

"Did you expect to find them roasted?" laughed 
their father. "I remember an old sea captain who lived 
on our street who always had his coffee brought green, 



From Coast to Capital in Guatemala 197 

in the original bags, by a seafaring friend who was in 
the Brazil trade. The coffee for each meal had to be 
fresh roasted and ground to suit his taste. I must say 
that it was the best coffee I remember ever drinking, 
except some I have tasted hereabouts." 

The leaves of the coffee shrub are dark glossy green, 
and the fruit looks like a dark red cherry. The flowers 
grow in white, fragrant clusters. Inside the berry are 
two kernels that look like a green bean cut in two length- 
wise, and surrounded by yellowish pulp. Shell, pulp, 
and skin are removed by machinery, and when dry the 
kernels are sent to market. 

Not far from the finca was a native Indian village. 
The houses were about eight by ten feet, with thatched 
roofs, no windows, and no chimney. The bed consisted 
of four posts driven into the ground, with slats across 
the top. On the slats was spread a skin, serving for 
mattress and bedclothing. A few gourds, a tea kettle, 




A relief map of Guatemala. 



198 A Central American Journey 

and one or two pans were all the dishes in sight. In a 
small chest the best clothes of the family, a few ornaments, 
and provisions were kept. 

In one hut a girl of about fourteen was making tortillas. 
The other universal Indian dish, frijoles or black beans, 
would have looked like mud to the children if they had 
not known what it was. The beans had been boiled 
until they were a soft black mass. Chilies or red peppers, 
onions, and garlic are used for flavoring everywhere in 
Central America. On the fire in the Indian hut was an 
earthen jar of soup into which all scraps were thrown. 
It was kept simmering constantly. When at mealtime 
a dish of soup was taken out for each person, water was 
added, and the pot continued to bubble like a cheerful 
and industrious household fairy. 

Some of the Indian girls were both pretty and pic- 
turesquely dressed in cloth woven on native looms. 
Sefior Perez told the children that each village has its 
own peculiar designs in goods, colors, and embroidery. 
When they reached the house Senora Perez asked one of 
the Indian maids to show Betty how her dress was made 
and worn. There were four pieces, the huipil or waist, 
the falda or skirt, the sash, and the headdress. The 
huipil was made of two straight pieces of cloth sewed to- 
gether, leaving an unsewed place in the middle of the 
seam for the head. The sides are then sewed up leaving 
arm holes, which gives an effect rather like a kimono. 
The falda is a straight piece of cloth wound around in a 
peculiar fashion and secured by the sash, a woven strip 
six or eight inches wide. This crosses behind and is 
passed around the hips and tucked in, confining the 
falda with an effect like that of some Spanish costumes. 
The headdress is a straight piece of cloth of some pretty 



From Coast to Capital in Guatemala 199 

design. The Indian girl often braids into her long, black, 
shining hair a narrow, bright strip of woven cloth which 
has the effect of a ribbon. Mr. Carroll promised Betty 
that she should have some real hand-woven cloth of 
which to make an Indian costume, the next time they 
found an Indian woman with a good stock of patterns 
for sale, and as it happened, the very next day one ap- 
peared in the market. It did not take long to stitch 
up the seams, and that evening Betty appeared, greatly 
to the amusement of her father, in complete Indian dress, 
Guatemala style. 

The last of Mr. Carroll's holiday was spent in a journey 
of a little more than a fortnight to Quezaltenango and 
back, by various ways of travel. He had intended when 
planning the trip in the beginning to leave the children 
with the Bastidos. Senor Bastido and Lucia had come 
to Guatemala and were living with an aunt of Lucia's 
in the city. But to their great delight he decided that 
they had proved themselves good travelers and might 
be allowed to go. 

The eventful fortnight included more rough and ready 
experiences than any of them except the head of the 
family had ever had before. The first day they rode 
nearly thirty miles over a difficult mountain road. The 
next day they set out at six in the morning in a diligence 
or carryall drawn by five mules. At one o'clock they 
reached a little Indian village and ate tortillas and frijoles 
in the company of mules and mozos. Fording rivers, 
creeping around precipices on mule-back, over narrow 
paths cut out of the rock, they reached next day a rail- 
road station where the thermometer was 110 degrees 
in the shade. Here they took what is called in Central 
America a mixed train, partly passenger cars and partly 



200 



A Central American Journey 




Musicians of pure Indian blood playing the marimba. This instru- 
ment is said to have originated with the natives of Guatemala, j 



freight and cattle. Then they went on mule-back over 
the mountain trail to Quezaltenango, climbing nearly 
9000 feet, while the thermometer dropped to 50 degrees 
as they ascended. One morning the road was bordered 
with banana, coffee, and orange trees, and the next after- 
noon they were riding through a pine forest. Quezalte- 
nango is a city above the clouds. 

On the return journey they had a beautiful ride along 
the banks of a stream, passing now and then a roaring 
cataract. The road descended 7000 feet as abruptly 
as most roads do in the mountain country of Central 
America. Now and then they met or overtook an Indian 
carrier with some sort of load on his back. Cotton, 
soap, and some other things go to Quezaltenango by 



From Coast to Capital in Guatemala 201 

mules, but flour, cement, furniture, and most other neces- 
sities are carried thirty miles by Indian porters. 

At last they reached a little town of some five hundred 
inhabitants, all but fifty of them Indians. Here a train 
passed three times a week on its way to Guatemala 
City, and the Carrolls took rooms at the leading hotel. 
By this time the children had reached the point where 
they regarded every new experience as an adventure 
to be stored up with delight. A letter which Elizabeth 
wrote, during their stay, to her favorite schoolmate 
in the United States caused a decided sensation when it 
arrived. It read as follows : 

Dear Edith, 

I am writing to you to tell you about our camping out in the 
mountains. We camped in tents part of the time and rode on mules 
almost all the way. Now we are in a hotel waiting for the train to 
come. I know you never saw a hotel anything like it. Every- 
thing is of stone or tile except the furniture and dishes. There 
isn't much furniture. Our room has stone walls and floor and one 
little window. We slept on high cots. There is one chair in the 
room where mother and I slept, and a kind of wash stand. There 
is an open yard in the middle of the hotel, with a round stone trough 
in it where they get all the water in jars. The chambermaid has 
just come in with a jar of water on her head. 

The yard is full of mules, chickens, pigs, and sheep. A man 
has just killed a chicken for our supper. There isn't any ice or 
any butcher shop, so they keep the animals here and kill them when 
they need to. 

Mother is trying to take a nap, and a parrot in a tree by the 
door is trying to keep her awake. I am writing at a table in the 
dining-room, and father is reading a Spanish paper a week old. 
He ordered some tea just now, and when the maid took the cup 
she threw what was left of the tea on the floor. Two hens are walk- 
ing around my feet and a pig came in, but father shooed him out 
and he didn't come back. I expect the mules will come in next. 
When we came in last night, we had to wait a few minutes in the 



202 A Central American Journey 

only parlor they had. It was the bar-room. One man was drink- 
ing and another walking up and down with a big revolver, and an- 
other was telling about something that happened in Mexico that 
sounded rather awful; but none of them really meant any harm 
at all. 

We are all well and as brown as Indians, and everything tastes 
good ; so we eat lots. I know you will think we must be crazy, 
but I never had such a good time in my life. We haven't been in 
an earthquake, but we've done 'most everything else. I can't 
send you a post card because they don't have any here, but I've 
taken lots of pictures and so has Billy. 

Give my love to all the girls. 

Betty. 

That night, when all were sound asleep, the beds began 
to rock like cradles. Mr. Carroll was wide awake in 
an instant and, catching up blankets, woke his wife and 
children, wrapped them in the blankets, and guided them 
out of doors. The floors were tilting like rocking chairs. 
The Central Americans behaved as if accustomed to 
be shaken up in the middle of the night, although 
there was more or less shouting and the dogs barked 
excitedly. Chickens woke up and squawked. Some 
plants and other things hanging from the roof swung to 
and fro. But no damage was done, and the birds in the 
trees near by slept peacefully through all the commotion. 



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 
Last Days in Guatemala 



As the Carrolls settled 
down in Guatemala and 
became acquainted, they 
noticed that in almost 
every home they visited 
there was a stuffed bird 
of a curious species, — a 
quaint, brilliantly colored 
bird with a very long tail. 
One day when they were all 
taken to call upon the Presi- 
dent by Senor Bastido, who 
knew him well, he saw the 
children admiring the spec- 
imen which ornamented 
his reception room, and 
asked in very good Eng- 
lish, "You know what the 
bird is, do you not ? " 

"The quetzal," answered Billy, 
stamps." 

"And on the Guatemala coat of arms," added Betty. 

"Yes ; and Quezaltenango is named for it. The name 
means 'the place of the quetzal birds.' But do you know 
why we choose that bird for our national emblem ? The 
quetzal is peculiar in not being able to live in captivity. 
If you put it in a cage, it will die. Is not that a good 
symbol for a freedom-loving people? We sometimes 
meet people from your country and from Europe who 

203 




The quetzal bird. 



It's on the postage 



204 A Central American Journey 

wonder at our love of liberty, but we would rather have 
our freedom even if we must remain poor than be subject 
to oppression. That is why we love the quetzal bird, 
because he will not be caged." 

The Carrolls liked Guatemala more and more as they 
became better acquainted with the people and more 
accustomed to the life. Mr. Carroll's business engage- 
ments proved so varied that for a time they gave up the 
thought of housekeeping and lived at hotels. Finally, 
however, offices were secured in the city and a house 
rented in the suburbs. They moved in for a Thanks- 
giving house-warming in November, 1917. 

The children gleefully unpacked their own particular 
treasures and pottered about the garden with their father, 
making plans for the future. They were looking for- 
ward to even more extended camping experiences, for 
Mr. Hobart had stayed in Guatemala for a day on his 
way to New York and promised to lend his outfit and 
advice. 

"And Betty was the girl who was shocked at the idea 
of butterless bread," teased her father. "And this 
time last year Billy was worrying over — what was it, 
son, that you weren't going to have here ? " 

"I forget," said Billy. "Nothing very important." 

"It's fun to know you can get along without things," 
said Elizabeth. "I like my bread that way now." 

Mr. Carroll began to feel as if the move had been very 
well worth while. He wished his children to have every- 
thing they needed and much that they would enjoy, 
but he did not like the idea of their being dependent on 
the things money could buy. 

Only enough of their furniture had been brought from 
the United States to give a flavor of home to the house. 



Last Days in Guatemala 



205 



It was not crowded, and the large rooms and bare spaces, 
the jars of ferns and flowers, and the bright cushions and 
draperies of native cottons gave a pretty, foreign look 
to the place. At their house-warming the company was 
as mixed as the furnishing. Senor Bastido and Lucia 
came, of course. Senor Perez and his wife came in from 
the finca. Dr. Macgregor came. So did young Frost, 
O'Keefe, and even young Follansbee, whom the other 
men found at San Jose and brought to the Thanksgiving 
dinner. Mr. Hobart could not be there, but sent them 
a fine jaguar skin for the floor of the living-room. Old 
Mr. Bradford had sent them a curious old silver lamp of 
Spanish workmanship, which had been dug up years 
before under a ruined chapel on his estate. When Senora 
Perez saw it, she promised 



to give them some per- 
fumed oil, made by a very 
old recipe used in the great 
house of a grandee of old 
Guatemala. 

Late in the evening, 
when the Central American 
guests had taken their 
leave, the Carrolls and 
their countrymen lingered 
to discuss the war news. 
Each had some friend or 
relative already in the 
service, and the three 
younger men expected 
soon to go home to enter 
training camps. ^Yet all 
had felt the charm of 




Cathedral fronting on the main 
plaza in Guatemala City, 



206 A Central American Journey 

these strange, tropical, half-wild lands of Spanish America, 
and all hoped some day to return to their work here. 

"Aye," said Dr. Macgregor, thoughtfully, "she's a 
grand country for those that have the vision. She's 
the land that has never grown old, and she holds the 
dreams of the world in her heart. 

"Four hundred years ago the auld Spaniards came 
here looking for the fountain of youth and the paradise 
on earth. But there's no paradise without peace, and 
no peace without justice, and no justice without free- 
dom. To do as ye'd be done by — I'm thinking that's 
the key to the treasure of Latin-America." 

"Or of any land," said Mr. Carroll. "Nobody can 
bully or bribe the millennium. It's a thing that must 
have time to grow. And it won't grow for those who 
don't believe in it." 

"What amazes me," said the engineer, "is that with 
all they've had against them these Central American 
republics have held on to their beliefs as they have. 
Look at the way their colonial governors crippled them ; 
look at the country and the way it has hampered any sort 
of development ; look at the way that city after city 
has been tumbled down by earthquakes and rebuilt; 
look at the way they used to be pestered by pirates and 
robbers of all descriptions. And yet they've gone right 
on, beginning over again. Central America isn't a has- 
been ; she's just beginning to be. When your company 
with its electrical machines, and Follansbee here with 
his hardware, and the rest of us with our American ideas, 
get our work connected up with this country, it certainly 
will be a team. Why, they've never really been on trad- 
ing terms with us until lately, and here were we, nextdoor 
neighbors ! There's bound to be a shake-up." 



Last Days in Guatemala 207 

The words were hardly spoken when the windows 
rattled and the house seemed to give a kind of shudder. 
After a minute the tremor shook it again. 

"See here, Frost, don't make any more such rash 
remarks," Mr. Carroll protested, laughing. "Remember 
that this is an earthquake country." 

No more shocks were felt, however, and the guests 
at last took their departure, promising that if possible 
they would spend Christmas with the Carrolls. 

In the following weeks several more slight earthquakes 
were felt. Mr. Carroll began to be uneasy. He could 
hardly leave his newly established business, and did 
not want to send his family north without him. Other 
people seemed to think little of the quakes, and he felt 
that perhaps he was over-anxious. 

On Christmas day Dr. Macgregor and young Frost 
dined at the Carrolls' and invited them to go into town 
to see a moving picture show. It was a moonlight night, 
and the little excursion was unusual enough to be rather 
a treat to the children. Their home being a little way 
out of town and Mr. Carroll being occupied at his office 
in the evening, they had not been to any sort of show for 
months. 

At eleven o'clock, just as the theater was about to 
close, there came a shock that sent the crowd scurrying 
out into the evening air pell-mell. Buildings were falling 
in various parts of the city, and the electric light com- 
pany promptly turned off the purrent to prevent trouble 
from fallen wires. Dr. Macgregor picked up Elizabeth 
as if she had been a baby. Mr. Carroll took charge of 
his wife, and Billy and Mr. Frost turned their attention 
to assisting some frightened women and children to get 
clear of the buildings and into the plaza. 



208 



A Central American Journey 




Drinking water for Guatemala City is supplied by carts like this. 



"Well, this is one way to celebrate Christmas!" said 
the engineer, when they were all in a clear space. " Car- 
roll, do you want help anywhere? I'm at your service 
if you do." 

"I wish you'd come around to the office with me," 
said Mr. Carroll, who had been thinking rapidly. "I 
shall need somebody with a head on his shoulders. Doc- 
tor, will you see Mrs. Carroll and the children home? 
We'll catch up with you, but I want to get them out of 
this as soon as possible." 

The party accordingly started picking their way along 
the railroad tracks in the moonlight, and before they had 
gone far Mr. Carroll overtook them on a borrowed mule. 
Riding and walking by turns, they made their way among 
crowds of people weeping and praying or calmly trudging 
along to some clear place outside the town. They had 
gone about halfway home when there came another 



Last Days in Guatemala 209 

violent shock, and the front of a two-storied house seemed 
to melt before their eyes. From behind them, in the 
city, came the sound of falling walls, and a great cloud 
of dust rose. They all thought of Sefior Bastido and 
Lucia, but nobody said anything. 

At last they reached their new home, expecting to 
find it in ruins, but it seemed quite unharmed. Then 
at last Mrs. Carroll spoke. Neither she nor any one else 
had uttered a word except to caution one another against 
stumbling. 

"What has become of Mr. Frost?" she asked. 

"He volunteered to go around and see if he could help 
Bastido and his family," answered Mr. Carroll. "I told 
him if he found them to bring them out here — quick." 

Another quake less severe than the first came just as 
he finished speaking, and was followed by others not so 
sharp. Billy afterward said that the earthquake "seemed 
to be getting tired." 

"It won't do to try to sleep in that house," said Mr. 
Carroll. "We'll make a run in and get coats and wraps 
and camp here in the yard." 

This was done, and with a collection of rugs and blankets, 
and hammocks slung under the trees, the Carroll family 
and Dr. Macgregor settled down, as Billy said, "to see 
the house fall if it was going to." 

But nothing fell. Dr. Macgregor presently got up 
and wandered out to see what he could do for some of 
the unfortunate people who had been injured. Toward 
morning, Mrs. Carroll went to sleep in a hammock. 
Billy rolled himself in a blanket and slept on a lawn 
settee. Elizabeth curled up like a kitten in the other 
hammock, and Mr. Carroll prowled about or sat watching 
the stars and trying to make plans. 



210 A Central American Journey 

About three o'clock a mule and a bicycle turned in at 
the gate. On the mule rode Lucia and her father ; on 
the bicycle, which was more or less damaged, rode the 
young engineer. Lucia's aunt was coming in a wagon, 
with some neighbors. 

Dawn showed that the house, while standing, was not 
safe for use. Walls were cracked and glass broken. 
The second story was so shaky that it might fall at any 
minute and wreck most of the lower floor. The kitchen, 
the only unwrecked part, had been built backed up against 
a high dirt wall. Manuela, the old cook who had lived 
for half her life with Lucia's family, began making coffee 
and getting breakfast as if nothing had happened. 

Everybody went to work to drag the furniture out in 
the yard. Under the engineer's direction Billy and some 
men and boys of the neighborhood began working at 
makeshift windbreaks and shelters covered with awnings 
out of doors. Mrs. Carroll, with the help of the women 
servants and Elizabeth and Lucia, directed the placing 
of the furniture and rapidly sorted and packed away 
things not needed at once, so that they could be moved 
when possible. 

"Betty," said Lucia in a low tone, as they trotted back 
and forth with their loads, "are you frightened?" 

Elizabeth paused before replying. "I don't believe 
I am," she said. "I guess we're too busy to be scared. 
Wait till we get these things out and I'll tell you." 

About noon came O'Keefe and Follansbee, tramping 
over the railroad tracks, and reported the city badly 
wrecked. The Follansbee offices were in a building 
that was, as the young salesman said briefly, smashed 
into smithereens. The young men had lost everything 
in the way of personal possessions except what they had 



Last Days in Guatemala 211 

on, for their hotel had been destroyed. The authorities 
had shut off all light and power, of course, and the aque- 
ducts were in a state that reduced the water supply to 
practically nothing. 

"No water ! " said Elizabeth. " My goodness ! " 

"We have reason to thank heaven that we have a 
pump," said Mr. Carroll. 

They realized this during the next few days, for all 
day long a procession of women with water jars was 
making use of their pump, the only water supply for a 
large section of the city. To draw water from a well 
200 feet deep is not play, as every one discovered, but 
it is much better than having none at all. 

Dr. Macgregor was working among the injured people, 
and Senor Bastido was helping him. As soon as they 
had done what they could to help the Carrolls arrange a 
temporary shelter, the three young men went to see what 
they could do to help reorganize the demoralized city. 

In the early afternoon of Saturday came another severe 





-■•-A ma. WRiMii j."_ *•' 1 

-'.'--, K < . :- ... . ..A 


1 Hi* ' 


W* 




?! ' rLggl 

















Ruins of Carmen church after the earthquake. 



%\% A Central American Journey 

shock and more people were killed ; crowds were leaving 
the city on foot. The British legation and other dignified 
government offices were on the ground. The cable 
office was a table in the public square. Public officials 
were carrying on their necessary business where they 
could, out of doors. 

The Carrolls stayed on, hoping soon to be able to move 
their furniture to some safe place. On the following 
Thursday, as Billy told the story some months afterward 
to old Mr. Follansbee, "there was a splendiferous quake 
in the middle of the night. Betts and I were sitting 
up to see what was going to break loose, when the ends 
of the house fell out and covered everything with about 
a million bushels of dust. Cry? No, sir, Betty didn't 
cry, and neither did Lucia. They wouldn't have missed 
it for anything — but we did begin to wonder if anything 
more was coming. You see, when we were coming out 
home after the first quake we heard a man say we might 
be sitting on a crater for all we knew. If the old volcano 
was going to spout any lava, a person would rather sit 
up on a safe mountain across the valley and see it than be 
part of the performance. But we didn't talk about that." 

After the experience of Thursday Mr. Carroll decided 
to wait no longer. Senor Bastido and Lucia were anxious 
that the family should come to the ranch in Costa Rica 
where Lucia's aunt and cousins already were. In a 
country where transportation is mainly a matter of 
porters and mules, they found it possible to get their 
furniture out of the town without hunting for vans and 
expressmen. Mr. Carroll was daily expecting instruc- 
tions from the company in regard to establishing offices 
in one of the coast towns. He decided to turn their 
own premises over to Dr. Macgregor for his hospital. 



Last Days in Guatemala 213 

In spite of the dilapidated state of things, the last 
evening the Carrolls spent in their wrecked home was not 
a sad one. They set the graphophone going and sat 
under the trees listening to opera music, patriotic airs, 
and old songs. A few cans and bottles remained from 
their provisions, and with the help of a chafing dish 
Mrs. Carroll served a meal which every one declared 
perfect. All their makeshifts and discomforts only 
seemed to add to the gayety. It was an evening to 
remember. 

Dr. Macgregor was there, a little grimmer and more 
silent than usual, and the three young Americans were 
there, much more intimate than they had been before 
this week of danger and hard work. There was just 
room for the six grown people and two children around 
the packing-box table, under the old Spanish lantern. 

"Wonder if they'd give me the job of rebuilding the 
town when I come back?" said Frost. 

"Pick out a safe place for it, then," suggested Follans- 
bee. 

"Easier said than done," chuckled O'Keefe. "Nothing 
seems to be safe in these days." 

"After all, people," Frost remarked, soberly, "none 
of us would really want to have missed this. I never 
knew before how fine human nature can be. You know, 
when we found Senor Bastido he was under a. pile of 
wreckage that had caught fire. And he never lost his 
head for a second." 

"Lucia is just as brave," said Mrs. Carroll. "The 
child hasn't complained or whimpered once — and all 
her life is broken up. She hasn't a thing now but the 
ranch, and she's sharing that with us and her aunt and 
cousins." 



214 



A Central American Journey 





Ruins of a church. 

"If the Central Americans can stand it, we ought to be 
able to," said Mr. Carroll. "Have you heard from your 
father, Joe?" 

"I got a telegram today, Mr. Carroll," young Follans- 
bee answered. " He's already sending tents and provisions 
and disinfectants. He didn't say a word about the 
loss ; just said I was to do what I could and report when 
I could." 

"Good American," said Frost. 

"I move," said Mr. Carroll, rising, "that we give 
three cheers for our friends the Central Americans — 
and then join hands and sing 'America' !" 



People should never be judged by what they have, 
but rather by how they secured it ; not by what they 
lose, but rather by how they recover. The things which 
come easily to us do us little good, whether buildings, 
money, or lessons. We grow only as we do difficult 



Last Days in Guatemala 215 

things. Disappointments and discouragements show what 
we are made of. 

This important rule applies to cities as well as to people. 
The test of a nation or a city is its ability to "come back." 
You cannot tell what any country or community is made 
of until it has suffered a great catastrophe by fire, earth- 
quake, or war. Belgium did not become famous by 
reason of its buildings, wealth, or foreign trade. It 
achieved fame because of its willingness to suffer so much 
for a cause and then to recover after the suffering and 
again to become a great nation. 

Although Guatemala City still shows many signs of 
the great earthquake which wiped it out during the last 
week of 1917, yet it is today a better and busier city than 
ever before. Modern improvements have been instituted, 
better buildings have been constructed, and the city 
has spread out into the suburbs to the benefit of all. 
Yes, Guatemala City has "come back"; it still holds 
its place as the leading city of Central America. 

The Carrolls are at home in the United States again, 
and our other friends of the story are scattered ; but when 
writing one another they all are planning on a reunion 
some day in the new Guatemala City. Perhaps it would 
be well to close this story with a quotation from a letter 
just received from Central America : . 

"The past is behind us; the future is ahead of us. 
Let us forget the past and go forth into the future filled 
with the spirit of service. No place offers greater oppor- 
tunities for service to the people of other countries than 
Central America, and surely no place has been endowed 
with greater natural advantages and can be of greater 
service to the rest of the world than Central America." 



INDEX 



Abaca, 79. 

Acajutla, Salvador, 171, 172. 

Agua, Volcan de, 191, 193. 

Aguacate, fruit, 150. 

Aguardiente, drink, 128. 

Alligator pears, 73. 

Alligators, 69 ; in Honduras, 146. 

Almagro, adventurer, 89. 

Almirante Bay, 64. 

Amapala, Honduras, 144, 145, 

146, 168. 
Animals of Panama, 51. 
Antigua, Guatemala, 192, 193, 

195, 
Antimony in Honduras, 153. 
Aspinwall, city of, 38. 
Automobile roads in Central 

America, 98. 
Avocado, fruit, 73. 
Azadbn, hoe, 25, 26, 27. 
Aztec Indians, 46. 

Balboa, discoverer, 34, 51-55. 
Balsam of Peru from Salvador, 

177-178. 
Banana plantation, Costa Pica, 

69-79. 
Banana production, 8, 77, 125. 
Bastida, Rodrigo de, 34. 
Bees in Costa Rica, 103-104, 105. 
Birds of Costa Rica, 59, 81. 
Black pearls, 56. 
Bocas del Toro, 67. 
Burial customs of Costa Rican 

Indians, 95, 107. 
Butter, substitutes for, 42, 133- 

134. 
Butterfly jewelry, 59. 

Cacao, in Costa Rica, 79; in 



Cartago, old capital of Costa 

Rica, 86. 
Cattle raising in Costa Rica, 81, 

82. 
Chagres River, 29, 34. 
Chiriqui Lagoon, 64. 
Chiriqui pearl, 55. 
Chocolate, made in Nicaragua, 

135-142. 
Cinnamic acid, from balsam of 

Salvador, 178. 
Cock-fighting in Nicaragua, 121. 
Cocoa butter, 141. 
Cocoa production, 141. 
Coconuts, 31, 41-42; in Hon- 
duras, 151. 
Coffee growing, in Costa Rica, 
100, 104; in Guatemala, 196- 
197. 
Cohune palm, 157. 
Coir, uses of, 42. 
Colombia, republic of, 47. 
Colon, town of, 34, 37-38, 39, 

60. 
Columbus, Christopher, 39-40, 

59-60, 62-67, 129. 
Comayagua, Honduras, 165-166. 
Copra, 42. 

Corinto, Nicaragua, 121-122. 
Coronado, 161. 
Cortes, 46. 

Costa de la Oreja, La, 63. 
Costa Rica, 68-109. 
Cristobal, 37-38. 
Culebra Cut, 38, 45. 
Custard apple, 68. 

Darien Colony, 36. 
Darien Company, 15-19. 
Davila, Gil Gonzalez, 129-130. 



Nicaragua, 125 ; plantation I De las Casas, Bartolome, 61. 
for raising, 135-142. | De Leon, Ponce, 123, 125, 129. 

217 



218 



Index 



De Lesseps, Ferdinand, 47. 
Dyewoods in Honduras, 151. 

Earthquakes, in Costa Rica, 86; 
in Salvador, 187-188 ; in Gua- 
temala, 202, 207-215. 

East India Company, 17, 18. 

Escuintla, Guatemala, 191. 

Falda, part of dress, 198. 

Figs in Costa Rica, 86. 

Fish of Panama, 51. 

Flour from bananas, 77. 

Fonseca Bay, 164. 

Forests, of Costa Rica, 81 ; of 

Honduras, 144, 146, 148. 
Frijoles, black beans, 103, 198. 
Fruits, of Costa Rica, 80 ; of 

Nicaragua, 121, 125-126; of 

Honduras, 151. 
Fuego, Volcan de, Guatemala, 191. 
Funerals and funeral customs, 

87, 178-179. 

Gaillard Cut, 38, 45. 

Gatun Lake, 43, 46. 

Gatun Locks, 43, 44. 

Geography game, 32-36. 

Gold, in Costa Rica, 81, 83, 105- 

107; in Nicaragua, 130-131; 

in Honduras, 151-154, 158-167. 
Gold mine, visit to, 158-167. 
Guatemala, city of, 191, 193-196, 

203-215. 
Guatemala, republic of, 191-215. 

Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, 48. 
Honduras, 143-167. 
Honey, in Costa Rica, 103-104. 
Huipil, waist of dress, 65, 198. 

Ropango, Lake, 175. 
Indian girls in Guatemala, 198- 
199. 



Indians of Costa Rica, 85, 90-96. 
Izalco, volcano of, 86, 172-173, 
176. 

Jaguars in Honduras, 148. 
Jocote, fruit, 129. 
Juaquiniquil trees, 138. 

La Libertad, Salvador, 171, 172. 
La Union, Salvador, 170-171. 
Leon, Nicaragua, 123, 124, 125- 

129. 
Lightering freight, 111. 
Limon, Costa Rica, 68. 
Limon Bay, 39, 66. 
Locks of Panama Canal, 43, 44, 

45, 46, 50. 
Lumbering in Costa Rica, 81. 
Luque, Spanish priest, 89. 

Machete, 26, 27. 

Mahogany trees in Honduras, 

148-150. 
Managua, Nicaragua, 122, 132. 
Mantillas, 84. 
Marimba, musical instrument, 

200. 
Maya textiles, 65. 
Menagerie, game of, 49. 
Minerals, of Costa Rica, 81, 83 ; 

of Honduras, 153-154. 
Miraflores Locks, 43, 46, 50. 
Momotombo, volcanic mountain, 

123-125. 
Mule-back riding, 97-99. 
Mule transportation, 23. 

Nicaragua, 121-142. 
Nicaragua canal route, 128. 

Orchids in Honduras, 146, 157. 
Orioles in Costa Rica, 81. 
Oxen in Honduras, 155, 156, 
157. 



Index 



219 



Panama, city of, 34, 38, 43, 55, 56. 

Panama, republic of, 33, 38, 47. 

Panama Canal, 31-56. 

Panama Canal Act, 48. 

Panama Canal Zone, 37, 47-48. 

Panama Railroad, 38, 47. 

Papaya, fruit, 121. 

Parrots in Costa Rica, 59. 

Paterson, William, 15-19, 46. 

Pearl Islands, 55. 

Pearls of Panama, 52, 55. 

Pedrarias, 53, 55, 89. 

Pedro Miguel, 46. 

Peruvian balsam from Salvador, 

177-178. 
Pizarro, 52, 89. 
Plantains, 75. 
Pomegranates in Nicaragua, 125, 

126. 
Poonac, 42. 
Port Escoces, 19. 
Puerto Rarrios, Guatemala, 31, 

191. 
Puerto Gordo, 66. 
Puerto Limon, Costa Rica, 63-64. 
Pumas in Honduras, 147. 
Punta Arenas, 108, 110. 

Quetzal bird, 51, 203. 
Quezaltenango, Guatemala, 26, 

199, 200 ; derivation of name, 

203. 

Railroad building, 26, 108, 146. 
Rebozo, shawl or scarf, 84. 
Relief map of Guatemala, 195, 

197. 
Rubber in Costa Rica, 80. 

Salesmanship, talks on, 20-29, 

115-120, 182-187. 
Salvador, republic of, 168-169. 
San Rlas Indians, 39. 
San Felipe, 26. 



San Juancito mountains, gold 
mining in, 152-153, 157-167. 

San Jose, Costa Rica, 84. 

San Jose, Guatemala, 191. 

San Salvador, capital of Salvador, 
181-190. 

Santa Maria la Antigua, 51. 

Sarsaparilla from Honduras, 151. 

Shark-shooting in Salvador, 172. 

Shopkeeping in Salvador, 181- 
187. 

Silver, in Costa Rica, 81 ; in 
Honduras, 153. 

Snakes in Costa Rica, 105. 

Spanish names, 40. 

Subtiaba, Indian village in Nica- 
ragua, 125. 

Taboga, island of, 89. 
Tagua nuts, 93. 
Talamanca Indians, 90-96. 
Tegucigalpa, Honduras, 145, 147, 

160, 165. 
,Temples of Minerva, Guatemala, 

193-195. 
Teredo, shipworm, 64. 
Tortillas, corn cakes, 102-^103, 198. 

Vanilla from Honduras, 151. 
Vaqueros, 133, 177. 
Vegetable ivory, 93. 
Vegetables, of Costa Rica, 80; 

of Nicaragua, 125-126; of 

Honduras, 151. 
Vinegar, banana, 77. 
Volcano, of Irazu, 86 ; of Momo- 

tombo, 123-125; of Izalco, 

172-173, 176. 
Volcanoes in Guatemala, 191, 193. 

Yojoa, Lake, 146. 

Zacapa, Guatemala, 191. 
Zinc in Honduras, 153. 




giiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiMiiiiiiiiiniiniiriiiiiiiiiiitiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiminuiniitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniic 

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PIONEER LIFE SERIES 



THE WHITE INDIAN BOY 




OR UNCLE NICK AMONG THE SHOSHONES 

Everybody that knew Uncle Nick Wilson was always begging him 
to tell about the pioneer days in. the Northwest. When he was eight 
years old the Wilson family crossed the plains by ox-team. He was 
only twelve when he slipped away from home to travel north with 
a band of Shoshones, with whom he wandered about for two years, 
sharing all the experiences of Indian life. Later, after he had re- 
turned home, he was a pony express rider, he drove a stage on the 
Overland route, and he acted as guide in an expedition against the 
Gosiute Indians. 

A few years ago Uncle Nick was persuaded to write down his recol- 
lections, and Professor Howard N. Driggs helped him to make his 
account into a book that is a true record of pioneer life, with its 
hardships and adventures. 

The White Indian Boy is illustrated with many instructive photo- 
graphs and with drawings of Indian life by F. N. Wilson. 

Single copies of this book are $1.00 postpaid. Discounts are allowed 
when a number of copies are ordered. Send orders to the publishers. 

WORLD BOOK COMPANY 

yonkers-on-hudson, new york 
2126 Prairie Avenue, Chicago 



24 5 91 










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IDERY INC. 

j^ MAY 91 

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^ INDIANA 46962 



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